Brooklands Farmhouse

Farmhouse. Dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, it has been altered and extended throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The structure is timber-framed, with brick facing and brick additions featuring a variety of bonds. It has a Welsh slate roof and brick chimneys. The original 16th-century house comprised two storeys and two bays. A 17th-century chimney and a two-storey, two-bay timber-framed range were added to the left, along with a rear outshut. A further two-storey brick addition with a basement and rear outshut was built in the 18th century. A single-storey brick wash-kitchen was added in the 19th century at a right angle to the left end, and later in the 19th century there was a rear outshut and wing addition to the right section. The southwest elevation shows straight joints indicating the different build phases. The oldest section, on the right-hand side, has some stone blocks and an exposed timber wall plate. The section to the left of centre is brick in Flemish bond with blue headers. It has mostly wide windows, with mid-20th century steel windows, a three-light wooden casement window to the ground floor left, and a two-light window to the left of centre. There is an inserted French window and a blocked entrance to the right of the main entrance. A large central stack has tripled flues, and there are end stacks, the one on the right being external. The wash-kitchen has a gable stack. On the right return, a late-20th-century conservatory covers the entrance, and a reset medieval ashlar corbel in the form of a king’s head (likely removed from Bishops Waltham Palace in the 17th century) is incorporated into a chimney. The rear of the right section has a continuous outshut under a catslide roof. Two left bays are of thin red brick in an irregular bond with casement windows of four and three lights, and one three-light dormer window. The bay on the right is of pink brick in English bond with a replacement basement door and a two-light window above. Inside, remnants of timber-framed walling can be seen, particularly in the former rear wall. On the ground floor, there are large-scantling, mostly stop-chamfered beams, joists, and a cross-beam between right-hand bays with mortices in the soffit, indicating a former plank and muntin partition wall. There are also timber bressumers to the fireplaces. Upstairs, some old floorboards remain. The roof over the right section is original and smoke-blackened, including tie-beams, collared queen-post trusses, clasped purlins, rafters, and straight wind-braces. The former left-hand end-wall has traces of lime-wash on its outer face. This is a 16th-century timber-framed house with 17th-century additions situated on a historically-significant site.