Walnut Tree Farmhouse

Walnut Tree Farmhouse is a mid- to late 16th-century farmhouse, now a house, with a cross-wing likely dating to around 1600. It was raised and re-roofed in the mid-19th century and restored in 1989. The building is timber-framed with render, and has a hipped pantile roof with brick ridge stacks. The plan consists of a two-unit layout with a cross passage to the left of the central hall and a cross wing to the right. The farmhouse is two storeys high with a six-window front. A lean-to porch was built in 1989 at the angle between the two main ranges. It has 20th-century casement windows. The interior retains significant timber-framing with closely-spaced studs, cranked tension braces, and jowled storey posts, surviving up to wall-plate level. This includes original blocked windows, namely a blocked four-light diamond-mullioned window in the front first-floor room of the cross wing, two mullioned windows of three and four lights and one chamfered mullioned window of four lights to the front first-floor wall, and a chamfered mullioned window of four lights to the rear left. The central hall features stop-chamfered beams and joists, a 16th-century brick open fireplace with a stop-chamfered bressummer, and a rare surviving 16th-century ladder stair with solid oak treads. This stair is located in a room to the left of the hall, alongside chamfered beams with a narrow bay that likely represents a former stack or smoke bay. A 17th-century newel stair is situated in front of the stack. The cross wing also has chamfered beams and a chamfered bressummer over an open fireplace. Tie beams indicate evidence of a former attic floor, with the tie beam at the lower end of the hall chamber showing evidence of queen posts.