Flixton Abbey Farmhouse

Flixton Abbey Farmhouse

A multi-phase house and service wing incorporating ruined medieval portions of Flixton Abbey, principally dating to the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

The building combines rendered flint and brick walling with timber framing, with roofs covered in black glazed pantiles. Some parts of the timber frame are infilled with wattle and daub.

The plan separates high status areas at the east of the building from service areas at the west end. The east wing retains vestiges of an original lobby entry plan but has since been altered.

The building faces south and is two storeys high with pitched roofs terminating in gables. The west wing has a ground floor of painted brick with a single casement window right of centre. The first floor is timber framed and features a large casement of 12 panes. At its east end is an engaged chimney with four diagonally-set attached square shafts with corbelled heads. This wing stands forward of the other, and its return elevation is largely blank except for two small windows.

The east wing is more formal and appears symmetrical, though it is missing at least one bay at the east end. There is a central chimney stack and a two-storey porch with the Adair monogram within its gabled upper storey. Casement windows flank the porch at each floor, with an additional doorway to the left-hand side at ground floor.

The east elevation has no fenestration. A pentice board protects an exposed first floor ovolo moulded tie-beam indicating the former continuation of the house for at least one further bay. There is a blocked window at ground floor, some incised render on the gable, and plain barge boards.

The north elevation has two ground floor lean-to extensions against the east wing and one larger two-storey lean-to against the west wing. The east wing proper has one leaded casement window at the right-hand side. The left-hand lean-to has three plank doorways. The central lean-to is slightly taller and has one large casement window with external panelled shutters and one small casement. The right-hand two-storey lean-to contains a large externally-shuttered window with panels, a small dormer with elaborately carved barge boards and a finial, an external porch with side access, and at the west end unglazed slatted vents to the dairy and cheese loft.

The west elevation is entirely faced in brick except for the rendered upper part of the cheese loft. The gabled wall of the west wing is three storeys high with an attic, indicating lack of consistent floor levels within. There are five pattresses for iron tie bars. The ground floor is thicker with English bond brickwork and has two brick buttresses between which are two small windows. Casement windows occupy the centre of the first and second floors, and an unglazed slatted vent sits at attic level. The upper storeys and dairy extension are walled in Flemish bond brickwork. The dairy has a casement window at ground floor and a slatted vent in its first floor cheese loft.

Interior

The east and west wings are separated by a mid-19th century stair hall inserted into the east wing. The staircase has an open string, stick balusters, newel posts, a lincrusta dado and dog-legs through a half landing. It interrupts original ovolo moulded beams likely dating from the late 16th or early 17th century at ground floor. Similar beams appear in other rooms of the east wing at this level. Additional features include four-panelled 19th century doors, a mid-19th century encaustic tiled floor in the lobby entrance, pine floors, and late 19th or early 20th century fireplaces.

The upper floor of the east wing is lower than the west wing. It was remodelled in the 18th century and retains six-panelled doors with original hinges, cupboards and hob-grates from that period. Above the fireplace in the eastern chamber is a highly decorative mantel beam, probably early 17th century, with apotropaic taper burns. Its surface has been stripped back and keyed for later plaster covering, probably in the 18th century. The only decorative beams at first floor level appear in this eastern chamber.

The ground floor of the west wing is of very different character, expressive of its function as the service end of the house and as a functioning part of the farm.

Access to the dairy is entirely separate, via the north porch. It has a screed floor draining to the centre, timber work tops around the perimeter, and vertically hinged shutters. A ladder-stair leads to the cheese loft, which has a pine floor, perimeter shelves and similar shutters.

The west wing proper is reached through a stable door and a pamment floored hall. A large reception room in a north-side extension contains reused 18th century fabric alongside 19th century doors and a mid-20th century fireplace. The original kitchen is in the older phase and has 16th or early 17th century timber framed walls on high brick plinths, with a pamment floor. The bressumer of a large open fireplace survives but infilling has created secondary features within it, including two 19th century bread ovens (one now removed) and a copper boiler (still in situ). An older, perhaps 18th century, brick-built bread oven stands to the right, adjoining a void containing the remnants of a small staircase and a blocked 17th century timber mullion window frame. Other historic service areas include a pantry with a gault brick floor and a scullery with its own lead water pump and a late 19th or 20th century staircase to the first floor. Blocked internal windows suggest the scullery and kitchen once communicated or borrowed light.

At first floor, the west wing has highly vernacular character with few rooms existing at the same level as their neighbours. Some internal walls have panels of wattle and daub and ceilings are covered in lath and plaster. There is a tall central windowless volume from which other rooms can be reached. A substantial chamber over the kitchen may have had independent external access historically, suggested by a blocked door on the south wall. At the south-west corner of this kitchen chamber is an upper room reached via a flight of stairs with a curious hinged step featuring a viewing or ventilation hole underneath. The west wall of the lower-first floor room changes thickness and includes a small cusped niche.

A spiral staircase rises into the roof void on the north side of the very large chimney stack. The void is vast and appears to date from the 17th century but may reuse older fabric. There are two levels of butt purlins and a third upper clasped purlin pegged with wind braces. Beneath the upper and lower collars, mortices of floor joists in the lower collars and rafters once ceiled with laths suggest an additional storey once existed. The west wall has a single large unglazed window or vent. Pantiles on the north side of the roof are laid on top of reed, suggesting this part may have been thatched originally. An open brick fireplace of probably 18th century date stands on the east wall of the roof void. In a small chamber to the right-hand side is a blocked east window.