Moat Farmhouse

Moat Farmhouse is an early 16th-century farmhouse, now a house, with a 17th-century porch and a 15th-century rear range remodelled in the 17th century. The exterior is rendered over a timber frame, with plain old tile roofs, hipped with gablets to the early 16th-century front range and gabled to the rear range. A rear lateral brick stack from the early 16th century is present, featuring brattished relief panels and three diagonally-set brick flues. A large, early 16th/early 17th-century brick external end stack is located to the left of the rear range.

The house has a conventional three-unit plan, consisting of a central hall that opens into the rear left range, which has served as a service range and back kitchen since the 16th century. The main front range is a two-storey, three-window arrangement, featuring mid-20th century sash windows and a mid-20th century panelled door within a gabled, two-storey porch to the left of centre. A 16th-century three-light wood-mullioned window adjoins the rear stack. The rear left range has mid-20th century sashes to the front bay and a mid-20th century flat roof to an early/mid-19th-century brick rear outshot, with a one-storey, two-window range extension further to the left.

Inside, a good-quality 16th-century timber frame is exposed. A small service chamber is located to the left of the central hall, which contains hollow-moulded joists to a pyramidal-stopped chamfered beam, a moulded beam with cusped stops, a 16th-century Tudor-arched brick fireplace, and two bays to the right with plain joists and chamfered beams. Mortices indicate the former presence of diamond-mullioned windows. Studded partitions flanking the hall range are continued into the roof framing, revealing a two-bay crown-post roof with lateral bracing to an octagonal crown post set on braced and cambered first-floor tie beam. To the right, there are two short bays with close-studded trusses; the one to the right has a cambered tie beam, and a transverse partition. A similar closed truss and transverse partition are present in the bay on the left. Remains of early 16th-century combed pargetting can be seen around the rear lateral stack. The rear left range comprises three bays with bracing to tie beams and a 17th-century clasped-purlin roof to the right of a 15th-century coupled-rafter roof. A ground-floor room in this range has 17th-century chamfered beams, a chamfered bressummer over an open fireplace, and a long shutter slide to a beam on the right. The building is a good example of an early 16th-century two-storey house with a crown-post roof to the central upper chamber, situated on a moated site.