Church Farmhouse

Church Farmhouse is a timber-framed house dating from the late 15th century, with significant alterations made in the early 17th century, 19th century, and 20th century. The building stands on the east side of Gislingham Road in Finningham.

The house was originally built as an open hall of two unequal bays with a cross passage bay and a storeyed lower bay, with an upper three-bay crosswing to the left forming an L-shaped plan. The structure has since been converted to two storeys throughout, with an attic in the cross wing. A floor and stack were inserted in the early 17th century, and the service end was largely rebuilt as a parlour. The timber frame is partly exposed with exposed close studding featuring a mid-rail, much of which has been partially restored. The roofs are machine tiled.

The main range has been remodelled as five bays. The entrance is a lobby positioned to the right of centre, replacing the original cross passage between the hall and later parlour. This is accessed through a boarded door set within a 19th-century open timber gabled porch. To the left is a part-opening four-light leaded casement, and to the right a part-opening three-light metal-frame leaded casement with a transom. On the first floor, the hall has a restored four-light roll and hollow mullioned window, and a three-light leaded casement. Small lights sit above the porch, and to the right is a restored three-light ovolo mullioned window. The mid-rail to the right is moulded, and the posts and chamfered wallplate retain tenons and mortices for the head of an oriel window. An axial ridge stack with three rebuilt conjoined hexagonal shafts rises through the building.

The right gable end has a ground-floor part-opening three-by-three pane metal-frame casement and a bracket supporting an exposed plate. To the rear, a boarded lobby entry door provides access, with restored three and four-light ovolo mullioned windows serving the parlour.

The cross wing has a gable front with two-light casements, a bracket to an exposed plate, secondary purlins, and a slightly taller ridge than the main range. The left return contains a late 16th-century external stack on the front or kitchen bay, constructed of English bond brick and tapering to a rebuilt cap. A 20th-century brick casing at ground floor level features a six-light window to the dairy. The first floor has a lattice leaded light and a restored three-light diamond mullioned window. To the rear, a moulded bracket supports an exposed plate, and a catslide roof extends over a lean-to addition behind the upper bay of the hall.

The interior retains substantial medieval and 17th-century features. The hall contains a semi-octagonal shaft with a brattished roll-moulded bell cap serving as a corbel to an open truss with arched brace (the opposite corbel has been removed). The original richly moulded and brattished spere beam survives, along with an inserted bar stop-chamfered axial binding beam and a repositioned fireplace bressumer. The parlour features a stop-chamfered cross axial binding beam supported on jowled storey posts, a stuccoed chamfered four-centred arched fireplace, repositioned 17th-century panelling, and a newel stair positioned behind the stack.

On the first floor, traces of the original six-light cavetto mullioned hall window remain visible. The open truss features chamfered arched braces to a cambered tie beam. The parlour chamber retains 15th-century rebated corner posts, large straight arched braces in the end wall, inserted ovolo-moulded tie beams, and a four-centred arched fireplace.

The crown post roof over the hall features an open truss with an octagonal post having a Perpendicular-moulded cap and base, arched bracing to the collar purlin (cut for the stack), and smoke-blackened rafters and upper end. The parlour roof has double butt purlins with upper arched windbraces, cambered collars also clasping the upper purlins. In the cross wing, the ground floor features small arched braces to broach-stopped cross axial binding beams and haunched soffit tenoned joists, with stairs positioned in the rear bay. A two-bay solar towards the front has chamfered arched braces to an open truss with cambered tie beam and a crown post roof without blackening, featuring a tall and slender octagonal post with multiple keel-moulded cap and base and four-way arched bracing. The rear bay contains a closed truss with arched bracing to the collar purlin.