Smeeds Farm

Smeeds Farm is a former farmhouse, now a house. It is a probable late 15th-century hall house that was altered in the late 16th century, re-fronted in the late 18th or early 19th century, and refurbished in the 1930s and subsequently. The 20th-century north kitchen extension and south conservatory are not of special interest.

The building was originally timber-framed, though the wall framing is no longer visible following re-fronting in brickwork, mainly in English garden wall bond or Flemish bond, which is now largely concealed under roughcast render. The half-hipped roof is covered with 20th-century tiles and has a 20th-century off-central moulded brick chimneystack.

Only the hall and service end of the late medieval open hall house survive. The hall measures 4.4 metres long by 5.8 metres wide, probably a single bay, with a service end of the same width and 4.5 metres long, originally divided into a buttery and pantry. The open hall was ceiled over, probably in the late 16th century, to provide a chamber above, and a chimney was inserted within the cross passage, transforming the plan to a lobby entrance type. Between the late 18th and early 19th centuries the wall frame was rebuilt in brick and a single-storey lean-to was built on the east side. The north or high end was rebuilt in brick in the 19th century and a south kitchen extension was added in the second half of the 20th century, on the footprint of an earlier extension shown on the 1873 map.

The west or entrance front, which beneath the roughcast is mainly English garden wall bond brickwork but with 20th-century brick underpinning, has two hipped dormers, two tripartite 20th-century casement windows and a 20th-century porch with a hipped tiled roof and a 20th-century double glazed door behind. There is a vertical iron tie between the north and the penultimate bay. The north end has a 20th-century casement and an attached 20th-century glazed extension. The east side has some exposed brickwork, mainly in Flemish bond but with some random bond to the penticed lean-to at the north end. There is a large 20th-century hipped dormer and two Velux lights to the roof. Below are two 20th-century casement windows and a wide 20th-century double door. The south end of the original building is now almost entirely obscured by the later 20th-century brick kitchen extension.

Internally, the room immediately south of the porch, the former service end of the hall house, retains the original floor joists, aligned north-south, with carpenters' numerals. Mortices on the soffit of the central joists show that the room was originally divided. The joists were trimmed against the east wall, showing the original position of the stairs. To the north of the porch the ground floor of the former hall, the high end and part of the rear lean-to, have been combined to form a single space. The former hall retains the late 16th-century inserted floor with a chamfered spine beam with lambs tongue stops and nine original floor joists with the same details. Probably in the 1930s a stone chimneypiece of reused stone, including some Caen stone, was inserted in the position of the 16th-century inserted chimney. Several reused architectural fragments, including a 12th-century scalloped capital, a billeted stringcourse, window mullions and column fragments, have been incorporated within the chimneypiece and may possibly have come from the nearby Monks Horton Priory. The plainly chamfered oak lintel may have formed part of the late 16th-century inserted chimney. The rear outshut has an early 19th-century ledge and plank door. Beside the 20th-century staircase the hall's low end wall retains the truncated low end beam and similarly truncated tie beam above, both with stave grooves for a partition. Only one corner post is visible on the upper floor. The bathroom in the room over the service bay has 18th-century ceiling beams. There is a further ledge and plank door and between the north bedroom and the adjoining bedroom is a partition containing a crown strut with wide curved down braces. In the roof space the collar and fragments of the front and rear rafter survive above this, with traces of soot blackening. Otherwise the roof structure has been almost entirely rebuilt in the late 20th century in softwood, except for an oak rafter and collar fragment towards the south end, possibly 17th century in date, and some reused timbers in the south hip, probably assembled in the 18th century.