Old Hall Farmhouse

Farmhouse. Dating to the 15th century, it was altered and extended in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is a two-story building with an attic to part of the structure, originally consisting of three cells. The farmhouse has timber framing with roughcast rendering, and brick to the ground floor of the left gable wall. It is roofed with clay pantiles. A large, rebuilt internal chimney stack features a square red brick shaft with a band and a corbelled white brick top. Windows are mainly three-light casements with transoms, and contain 20th-century diamond-leaded panes. There are two 20th-century doors: one leading into a lobby entrance with a rustic timber porch, and another in a cross-entry position, set in a recessed brick porch. The interior is divided into three sections; the central 1½ bays represent the earliest part of the building, containing the core of an open hall. The roof structure and tie-beam of the open truss were removed later, and the walls heightened. Original timbers remain smoke-blackened, but little evidence of the original hall form survives. A chimney stack was inserted into its upper end in the mid-16th century, and a new parlour block was added. The parlour has a fine exposed ceiling on the ground floor, with double roll-mouldings to the main beam and joists, and run-out stops. The upper rooms have close-studding with cranked braces, and an original upper ceiling is present. A blocked four-light window with unusual wide roll-moulded mullions is found on the rear wall. A square-headed, ovolo-moulded doorway with formalised roses at the base of the jambs is located between the parlour and hall, with a similar, weathered doorway at the rear of the cross-entry. The service area was enlarged and raised in the 17th century, although fragments of medieval work remain. The remains of mullioned windows with wide sills, and a further doorway, now reset with a four-centred arched head and carved spandrels—all from the rear wall—suggest that the house formerly faced in a different direction. A long, one-and-a-half-story lean-to now runs along the back. The house contains a number of good, molded 16th-century plank doors, all different, with original hinges.