Rookery Farmhouse

Farmhouse. Dating to the late 15th century, with additions from the 16th and 17th centuries. It is a two-storey building with attics, arranged in an L-shape. The construction is timber-framed and rendered, with a black glazed pantile roof. There are internal chimney stacks for each range, with square shafts rebuilt in the 18th century, retaining older moulded bases. The main west-facing front has 3-light casement windows with transomes; some are original with square leaded panes, while two on the ground floor are 20th-century replacements. The upper windows are at varying levels and the front range is not of a single date. The entrance door features 6 flush panels, with the top two glazed, panelled pilasters, and a triangular pediment with dentils. On the upper floor of the south side are two tall 18th-century 3-light diamond-mullioned windows with transomes and pintle hinges.

A two-bay 15th-century open hall, originally with a queen-post roof, is now incorporated within the east-west range. The smoke-blackened cambered tie-beam and heavy arched braces of the open truss remain, with mortices in the tie-beam for queen-posts. The walls were raised, probably in the 18th century, and there is a 19th-century brick extension, colour-washed externally, to the east of the hall. The 16th-century ceiling inserted in the hall has a main beam with a 6-inch chamfer and leaf-stops. A late 16th-century chimney stack and parlour were added to the west of the hall, featuring a plain ceiling with stepped stops to the timbers, an open fireplace with a plain timber lintel, and in the room above the parlour a fireplace with a fine bolection-moulded surround.

A 17th-century extension on the north side of the parlour created the present three-cell north-south range. Extending on its north side is a gabled two-storey stair wing, with eaves wallplates supported by ornate Jacobean brackets and a complete 5-light ovolo-moulded mullioned window on the ground floor. The fine stair with turned balusters within this wing, though of the same date, appears to have been taken from another building, as it blocks the original window and was intended for a different alignment.