Buckets Down Farmhouse

Buckets Down Farmhouse

A two-storey, three-cell farmhouse built in the late 17th or early 18th century, with significant later alterations and additions. The southern elevation is built in red, brown and grey brick laid in Flemish bond, with a deep rendered plinth and brick storey band. The eastern gable wall is constructed of flint with early 18th-century brick, including brick quoins and a shallow flint and brick plinth; this wall underwent alteration and repair in the later 19th century. A single-storey western extension with a steeply-pitched roof has been added. The deep rear outshut is a 1920s addition or rebuild. Plain tile roofs cover the structure.

The southern elevation has a slightly set-forward central bay containing the front entrance, which is accessed beneath a 20th-century brick porch. The door consists of four flush, moulded panels in a plain brick opening. Windows are 20th-century two-light metal-framed Critall casements beneath cambered brick arches. Narrow windows of late 19th or early 20th-century date flank the entrance. The roof is shaped above the first-floor windows in the manner of eyebrow dormers and may originally have been thatched. External gable-end brick stacks are present; the eastern stack is of 18th-century brick but has been repaired and in part rebuilt above eaves height, probably when the outshut was constructed in the 20th century. The western stack is now internal. Both stacks have been rebuilt above the ridge and carry moulded caps. Brick eaves brackets were probably added during the 1920s alterations.

The rear elevation features a deep catslide roof encompassing both the outshut and the original front range. The rear entrance has a plank door beneath a brick porch. Rear and gable-wall windows are timber casements. A single mid-20th-century eyebrow dormer is set into the roof. The south-facing wall of the western bay incorporates early, probably 18th-century brick, but is rebuilt in brick above storey height, with an inserted upper window bringing light to the kitchen. The rear section is of later 19th and 20th-century date, with later 20th-century windows including one positioned where a former doorway stood.

The interior contains a box-framed rear wall of 18th-century character with jowled posts, which have been curtailed where the rear roof has been altered. No visible timber frame appears on the front wall except for a section of wall plate in the central bay, which may be a later replacement. Timber-framed transverse internal partitions are of slender scantling; joints on the eastern partition are marked with vertical lines and Roman numerals. Exposed ground-floor transverse ceiling beams, of late 17th or early to mid-18th-century type, are present in all bays and are chamfered with lamb's tongue stops. Set against the front wall and internal partition of the western bay is a timber round-arched alcove or cupboard with a moulded architrave, pronounced blocky key and later shaped shelves. Straight stairs rise against the internal rear wall to a landing or corridor at the rear of the central first-floor room. The stairs are unusually wide for a house of this size and are enclosed behind a raised and fielded timber panelled partition of later 17th or early 18th-century type, which also encloses the cellar steps but has been altered to accommodate the stair arrangement. Turned balusters are of later 19th or early 20th-century date in 18th-century manner, although the half-baluster may be original. The moulded rail is composite, incorporating earlier moulded fabric. Most doors are of three broad moulded planks with nailed strap hinges. The eastern bay was refurbished in the late 19th or early 20th century and retains panelled or plank doors; the ground floor features an ornate timber mantelpiece. The cellar is lined with brick and flint with a small area of render surviving in situ; cellar steps are of narrow 2-inch brick.

The roof structure contains substantial collars pegged into principal rafters, which are cut away to house later machine-cut trenched purlins. While some original rafters remain, most have been replaced. Lathe and plaster first-floor ceiling survives in situ above the central bay. At the western end, a slender scantling partition at the apex of the gable wall appears to be encased in brick. At the eastern end the upper gable wall is timber-framed and brick-nogged in stretcher bond.

The central cell remains unheated, with front entrance accessing it and rear entrance to the western cell. The planform is unusual in that cellar stairs descend beneath the eastern cell while main stairs rise above them against the rear wall of the central bay.