Perkins Farmhouse

Perkins Farmhouse is an early 17th-century timber-framed farmhouse situated in Mendlesham. The front is roughcast-rendered, while the right gable end is cased in colourwashed brick with a weatherboarded gable. It has a thatched roof and is of a two-cell, lobby entry type plan. The building is two storeys high with an attic. It has two windows, mostly 19th-century small-paned casements of two and three lights, with a 20th-century metal replacement in the lower left position. A small original ovolo-mullioned window is located above the doorway. The entrance is through a plank door. The stack has an axial sawtooth shaft. A full-width, single-storey rear lean-to extends the building. The interior remains largely unaltered since the 19th century. The left room retains widely-spaced studding and blocked windows with ovolo mullions. There is a chamfered floorbeam with lamb's tongue stops, with the joists plastered over. An early 19th-century fireplace surround is present, with the original lintol visible behind. The right room has less apparent structural detail, with an unchamfered floorbeam and a plastered ceiling with simply-moulded borders. A good original newel stair with thick treads is also present. The upper floor has not been examined. Perkins Farmhouse represents a very good, intact example of its type.