Walnut Tree Farmhouse

TM 15 SE 4/122

HENLEY MAIN ROAD Walnut Tree Farmhouse

II*

Farmhouse, built in 4 phases from mid C15 to mid C16. A large half-H plan house; the service range also projects at the rear. 2 storeys. Timber-framed and plastered. Plaintiled roofs with C19 serpentine bargeboards. Axial chimneys of red brick; the central stack in the hall range has a C16 saw-tooth pattern shaft. Mainly C19 small-pane sash windows. 1-storey C20 entrance porch with plaintiled roof; panelled inner door. The construction phases are as follows:- 1. Part of a 2-bay C15 open hall now behind the service range. Tension-braced close-studwork and heavily smoke-blackened crown-pose roof. It originally had a further cell at the rear; the hall may have been kept on as a kitchen or bakehouse for the substantial house built in C16. 2. A 2-cell, 4 bay service range attached to the hall c.1500; plain but heavy framing, arch-braced close-studwork and unmoulded crownpost roof. Some blocked diamond-mullioned windows. This range was detached from the early C16 house and thus has windows which are now internal. 3. A solar cross-wing, coeval with, but detached from phase 2. A high quality structure. The 3-bay solar has very close studwork; the open trusses survive, but without the original crown posts. A blocked window has heavily moulded mullions, each light having a little arched head with sunk spandrels. This solar wing was attached to a hall range which was demolished to make room for phase 4. 4. This range was re-built c.1550-1570 and contains a hall and parlour of high quality, with back-to-back fireplaces. The parlour has roll-moulded beams and joists and blocked moulded mullioned windows. Wind-braced clasped- purlin roof. Attached to the rear wall of the house is a limestone headstone taken from a nearby meadow; it marked the grave of a horse which according to the epitaph served its master in several battles in Europe during the Napoleonic wars and evidently retired to this farm until its death. Included as Grade II* because a good example of the evolution of the house of a prosperous farmer from the C15 to C16.

Listing NGR: TM1567351765