Catlyns Farmhouse

A house dating from the mid 16th century, with significant roof repairs in the late 17th century, and alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is timber-framed, with some sections faced in 19th-century brick; the roof is pantiled. The house was converted into two dwellings around 1850 and later returned to a single residence in the 20th century.

The original layout comprised a ground-floor parlour, a passage, and service rooms, with the passage and service rooms later combined into a single large room. The timber frame is of four bays, with a wider bay in the centre.

The west front has two storeys and a two-window arrangement. It has a red brick façade in Flemish bond, set upon a tarred brick plinth. A 20th-century gabled weatherboarded porch is on the left, and a 20th-century casement window is to the right, blocking a 19th-century doorway. Two two-light casement windows are located centrally on each floor. The roof is gabled, with a central rendered and colourwashed ridge stack.

The east front features a four-window arrangement. The first floor displays exposed studs and a tension brace in the south corner. An exposed bressumer indicates the position of a former jetty. The ground floor is brick-built; a 20th-century doorway is on the left, sheltered by an open gabled hood, and a 19th-century casement on the right serves as a doorway, featuring a semi-circular timber head. Two casements are between these, with a further casement at the extreme south. The first floor has one three-light hollow-moulded mullioned window on the south side, and two similar four-light windows to the north, alongside a 20th-century casement in the centre.

The north gable is plastered and colourwashed, with a three-light casement window on each floor. The bricked south gable has one two-light casement window on the first floor and a single-story extension dating from the 1960s on the ground floor.

Inside, a room on the south ground floor features a chamfered dragon beam with tongue stops, indicating a former jetty to the east and south. A bridging beam with chamfers and tongue stops is to the west. Plain flat joists are present, along with a fireplace with a chamfered bressumer. The north rooms have been combined, supported by two posts, one of which is a reused jowled principal stud. Studwork is visible on the north and west elevations. A chamfered fireplace bressumer with elaborate tongue stops is on the west side. A mid-19th-century cupboard with triangular plank backboards is located west of the stack. A staircase is within a boarded well in the north-west corner.

On the first floor, there’s an inserted passage on the west side. Jowled principal studs with tension bracing are at the corners, and arched braces define the posts of the wider central framing bay (visible in the south truss only). A 16th-century three-plank door with a four-centred head leads from the passage to the south. The north room has close studding on the south wall and a cambered tie beam. The south room also has close studding on the south wall, with a 16th-century rebate in the tie beam, likely for a window shutter; a strengthening wall plate has been inserted to the east wall.

The roof is of the late 17th century, constructed with common rafters, a single tier of clasped purlins and collars.