Batts Farmhouse

Batts Farmhouse

Farmhouse dating from the 17th century with probable 19th-century additions. The building is timber-framed with box frame construction, set on a brick plinth and rendered. It features a brick chimney stack and brick outshuts built in Flemish Bond, with pantiled roofs.

The house is organised on a two-cell plan of two storeys, originally with a lobby or baffle entry where the front door opened onto the central chimney stack. This original entrance may survive as the door between the corridor and kitchen. Single-storey outshuts extend to the rear and north-west gable.

On the south-west elevation there are three first-floor windows and one ground-floor window. The main entrance has been relocated to provide direct access to the north-west room, and a modern glazed porch or conservatory has been added to the north end of this elevation. The south-east gable end now has French doors inserted, together with two first-floor windows and an attic window. A small window on the first floor of the north-east elevation cuts into the roofline of the outshut below. All windows are modern replacements.

Inside, the timber framing of the walls is largely concealed under plaster. On the ground floor, only the sill beam is visible on the brick plinth in the north-east wall of the south-east room, with posts and studs visible on the first-floor landing. Both ground-floor rooms have cross beams at either end supporting axial beams which in turn support floor joists. Both axial beams are chamfered with carved stops. The fireplaces in both rooms have been rebuilt in brick; in the north-west room the wall around the fireplace has been reconstructed with arched niches on either side opening onto space behind the wall. A short corridor connects the two rooms. To the left of the door from the south-east room is an enclosed winder stair set against the chimney stack. At the end of the corridor is a walk-in cupboard with a door to the north-west room to the left. On the first floor, timber framing is visible as upright studs, chamfered axial and transverse beams, and joists. The original wide-planked floors survive, and there is a fireplace in the largest north-west bedroom, which occupies the full width of the house. The slope of the central chimney stack is visible in a small storage space behind this room. A corridor from the landing connects the other rooms. None of the doors are original. The roof timbers are modern.

To the west of the house is a range of associated sheds and outbuildings. These occupy the same position as those shown on the 1886 Ordnance Survey map, but they have been much altered and extended with a very different footprint. Only a fragment of original fabric survives towards the south end of the row, and these buildings are not of special historical or architectural interest.

The house is a 17th-century building with probably later outshuts to the rear and north-west gable. The 1886 Ordnance Survey map shows that the rear outshut was extended in the 20th century, but otherwise the house occupied much the same footprint as it did at the date of the first ordnance survey. A small single-storey porch at the north end of the south-west elevation is a 20th-century addition that replaced the original lobby entrance. The roof, windows and external doors were all replaced in the 20th century, and French windows were inserted into the south-east gable end.

The building is designated Grade II as a 17th-century vernacular structure which retains a significant proportion of its original fabric, including timber framing, ceiling beams, joists and floors. It is of special interest for the survival of its essential plan form. It has group value with other listed farmhouses in the immediate neighbourhood, including Meadow Croft (early 17th century) to the east and Rookyard Farm (late 15th or early 16th century) to the south, both within 200 metres.