The Black House

The Black House is an early to mid-17th century farmhouse, later used as a worker’s cottage and derelict at the time of survey. It was altered in the mid-19th century. The building is timber-framed and clad in weatherboarding, with a brick end wall and a corrugated-iron roof hipped to the west end.

The plan consists of a two-bay hall house, originally with a smoke bay at the east end. The exterior is two storeys high and has an irregular arrangement of windows. The north front has one mid-19th century square casement window, although others are hidden by the weatherboarding. The building appears to be the two surviving bays of a formerly three-bay house. An opening at first-floor level on the north front suggests that the west first-floor room was used for storage.

The interior retains a complete timber frame, except for the east wall, which was rebuilt in brick when the former lath-and-plaster smoke bay was converted into a chimney. The ground-floor east room has a chamfered spine beam with a lamb's tongue stop, while the west room has chamfered floor hoists. A 18th-century wooden winder stair is also present. The first floor has 17th-century floorboards and a fireplace with a wooden bressumer and curved back. The roof has coupled rafters without a ridge piece, collar beams marked by the carpenter, and a lath-and-plaster partition. The timber frame features jowled posts and diagonal tension braces. A large fireplace on the ground floor was reduced in size in the early 19th century, and a four-panelled door to the winder stair dates from this period.

Behind the weatherboarding is a substantially intact timber frame of a three-bay 17th-century farmhouse, which is of historic interest.