Hill Farmhouse

Hill Farmhouse

Farmhouse, dated to the 16th or early 17th century with later additions and alterations. The building is timber-framed with colourwashed render and a plain tile roof of 20th-century date, probably originally thatched. It comprises two storeys with an attic and displays an H-shaped roof plan featuring a ground-floor hall with screens passage.

The drive front presents two gabled wings flush with the central axial range. The right-hand gable wing, which appears to be the earliest part of the building, contains a 19th or 20th-century casement window of three lights to the ground floor at the left and a mullioned window of five lights with moulded mullions and 20th-century glazing at first-floor level. To the left in the axial range, to the right of centre, is a 19th-century six-panel door with classical surround, the lower four panels being raised and fielded and the upper two glazed, all within a moulded surround and pedimental top. On either side of this are two-light 19th-century casements. To the attic, at the left of centre, is a two-light 20th-century hipped dormer window. The left-hand wing has two-light 19th-century casement windows at ground and first-floor levels and a further two-light casement to the slightly jettied gable. The left-hand side features at ground-floor level a 20th-century three-light mullioned window and a two-light 19th-century casement to the first floor. A lean-to with catslide roof of 19th-century date connects to the lower right-hand wing, with a door at the left within a lean-to porch.

The rear elevation shows projecting wings at either side. The left-hand wing contains at ground-floor level a central strip window divided into three parts by king mullions, with six central lights and seven lights at either side. The right-hand window retains ovolo-moulded mullions at left and centre. At the first floor is a window of five lights, one mullion being a 20th-century replacement. To the right, in the recessed portion, a 20th-century chimney-stack with offsets sits at the far left, with a three-light casement window to its right and a three-by-three-pane sash window replacing a former doorway further right, followed by a two-light 19th-century casement window. At the first floor, right of centre, is a mullioned window with two surviving diamond-shaped mullions, and to the left a two-light 19th-century dormer window with flat roof. In the re-entrant angle with the right-hand wing stands a two-storey lean-to of brick with single-light windows at ground and first-floor levels. The right-hand gable end displays a 20th-century glazed doorway at ground-floor level and a three-light window at the first floor to the left.

Interior

Close studding is visible throughout the building on both floors. The hall features massive ceiling beams with run-out endstops and a wooden screen with moulded rails. A 20th-century wooden staircase, brought from the Britannia Building Society in Ipswich, occupies the screens passage, which was slightly widened to accommodate it. Jowled wall posts exist in the hall, now cut back, and a brick chimney-stack with chamfered and end-stopped bressumer is present. Further chamfered ceiling beams and joists occur in the southern ground-floor room, which features a chamfered bressumer with stepped run-out stops to the hearth. Additional jowled wall posts are present at the first floor.