Finkley Manor Farmhouse

Finkley Manor Farmhouse

This is a two-storey house with attic, originating in the 18th century, with 19th and 20th century extensions and ancillary buildings.

The house is built from brick laid in Flemish bond, with gauged brick or stone lintels, clay tiled roofs and brick chimneystacks with corbelled eaves. The ground plan is a double-fronted, double-pile structure with extensions to the east and north. Map regression suggests the plan has developed over time, though this is not immediately apparent from the visible fabric.

The principal west elevation displays early 18th-century symmetrical double-front composition with a central door (later equipped with a brick porch) and a two-windowed-bay extension to the north added shortly after. The windows are multi-paned sashes, a mixture of eight-over-eight and six-over-six with one three-over-three, set under stone lintels and gauged brick skew back arches. The roof is hipped with plain tiles and symmetrically placed stacks.

The south elevation is also brick in Flemish bond, with three bays containing five sash windows (four six-over-six and one three-over-three) and a blind window under a segmental arch in the middle bay of the upper storey. Beneath the blind window is a distinguishing Sun fire insurance plaque. A dormer with casements sits above. The east elevation is dominated by two large flues, with a visible scar of the demolished rear hall. The remainder of this elevation and the north elevation are concealed by sympathetic modern extensions.

Internally, the house contains 18th and 19th-century traditional panelled and timber doors, wide early floorboarding, and small-pane sash and case windows. The reception hall features a closed string stair with stick balusters and a chamfered square newel, though the stair appears not to align with the newel at the top and may have been relocated. The hall also contains a large marble fireplace with iron fire grate.

The sitting room contains a similar fireplace and is lit by two three-over-three unhorned sash windows (probably pre-1840s) fitted with bead and hollow glazing bars. The dining room contains a large transverse ceiling beam with vacant mortises and chamfering (without stops), suggesting it may be reused material. This room also contains a large brick inglenook fireplace with a salt shelf. The external stack shape indicates the presence of a curing chamber within the flue above the inglenook. The dining room is separated from the adjacent hallway by a small window, and the hallway has a wide strip of pavoirs running across the otherwise tiled floor.

The scullery, opposite the dining room and behind the reception hall, contains a shuttered window, a fire-proof safe, and a chamfered ceiling beam that continues into the kitchen at the rear. The first-floor bedrooms contain 18th-century doors and ironmongery with 19th-century register grates. The attic is partially ceiled but reveals queen strut and staggered purlin roof structure.

The building stands above a brick cellar containing a large reused timber beam and a coal chute.

Adjacent to the house to the north and east stand a barn, a walled garden with an outbuilding known as the bothy, an ice house, and a well. The rectangular-plan barn is of mixed brick and cob construction with a half-hipped plain tile roof. Timber frame elements are visible in the gables, infilled with brick noggin in stretcher bond. The roof is a queen strut construction of reused timber, with half the roof space boarded for use as a loft. The interior is a single open space.

The rectangular-plan bothy is of rendered cob with brick dressings under a hipped corrugated iron roof, incorporated into the wall of a rectangular walled garden to the north of the house, also of cob with a corrugated iron cap. The bothy interior is a single open space with a roof formed from partially converted timbers. The ice house and well were not inspected. The two-storey modern extension at the north-east rear of the farmhouse, the greenhouse, and the garage are excluded from designation.