Mansion Farmhouse including ancillary buildings and structures

This farmhouse originated in the 17th century and was remodelled in the 18th century, with gradual extensions continuing through the 18th and 19th centuries. 19th-century ancillary buildings and structures lie to the east, south and west.

The house is primarily timber-framed on a low ragstone plinth, clad in mathematical tiles. Rear elevations are clad in hung clay tiles. Roofs are clay tile and windows and doors are timber.

The building has two storeys, plus attic and cellar, with hipped roofs and sprocketed eaves. Its footprint is now rectangular, but the principal ranges form an L-shaped plan. An east range, running north to south, faces east onto Knowle Hill. Thought to have been the entrance range of the 17th-century farmhouse, this has a central entrance opening onto a lobby and stair, with a room to either side (one north, one south). Behind the south room, a second 17th-century range extends west, away from the road. This has a substantial brick stack positioned between the front room and that behind. This south range was subsequently extended by another bay to the west, probably in the early to mid-18th century.

At some point the building's orientation changed, making the extended south range the principal entrance front. This was possibly in the later 18th century, when the house underwent a major remodelling: the south elevation was reordered to form a near-symmetrical arrangement with a central entrance hall (17th century), and a room each to east (17th century) and west (early 18th century). To the rear was added a stair hall with a grand open-well stair. Between this stair and the back of the east range of the 17th-century house, a stack was added and the back wall of the 17th-century north room (in the east range) was removed, opening it onto the new hearth. To the north and west of the grand stair, a kitchen and rear hall were added, in-filling the remainder of the L-shaped plan. A single-storey, brick-built extension to the north end of the 17th-century house may be of 18th- or 19th-century date.

The first-floor plan largely mirrors that on the ground floor, although here the rear wall of the 17th-century north room remains. The south and east ranges have attic rooms, accessed from the stair in its original 17th-century position in the east range. There is a two-room cellar beneath part of the south range, believed to have been dug in the 18th century.

Exterior

The east elevation, facing Knowle Hill (and probably the 17th-century entrance front), has a near-symmetrical three-bay arrangement with central door. The mathematical tiles are hung in stretcher bond, and there is a moulded wooden eaves cornice. The door is slightly recessed and is panelled with two top-lights. The architrave has a pair of plain pilasters supporting a frieze and dentilled pediment. The windows are six-over-six-pane sliding sashes with exposed sash boxes. There are two hipped roof dormers with casement windows.

The impressive south elevation is of a similar character to the east elevation, but is a wider, six-window front with a slightly less regular arrangement. The door is off-centre to the west and has an architrave matching that to the east. The windows are also six-over-six-pane sliding sashes with exposed sash boxes, but are unevenly spaced, with three each at ground and first floors to either side of the door. The large ridge stack of the 17th-century house is off-centre to the east.

The west elevation is also hung in mathematical tiles. Many of these are believed to be later replacements because this side of the house was most badly damaged by a wartime bomb. The elevation is irregular: the early 18th-century part is blind, and the later kitchen extension has a window each at ground and first floors. An off-centre external stack is a 19th-century addition.

The rear elevation, to the north, is an irregular arrangement of roofs, windows and doors, generally of 19th-century or earlier date, with an informality typical of service areas and reflecting the various phases of expansion in this part of the house. Because of the rise in ground level between the front and back, to the immediate rear of the house is a small area contained by a ragstone retaining wall approximately four feet high. Against the retaining wall is a small, brick-built, pitched-roof building which was probably a privy, and adjoining this is a timber-built structure with a mono-pitched roof covered in corrugated sheet material. This is thought to be an early 20th-century coop and/or store.

Interior

The building's interior retains fittings, as well as some visible structural fabric, relating to its various phases of development and evolution. The small central bay of the 17th-century east wing, which contains the lobby and stair, is particularly evocative of this primary phase, retaining its distinctive layout and some early fittings. The lower part of the stair and its enclosing well has undergone some renewal, although it is still of some age, but the upper parts which lead into the attic appear to be early and quite possibly original, including a built-in storage cupboard with oak lid. At first floor the jowling of the bay posts is visible, and within the attic space at the top of the stair, square-sectioned newel posts with primitive carved finials are part of an early balustrade, although the balusters themselves are later. A wide planked door with timber latch gives access to the north attic room; this is possibly an original 17th-century door. Within the other attic rooms there are further early planked doors and the staggered butt-purlin roof structure is partly visible. One of the rooms has a crude wooden hanging peg, perhaps for a lamp or clothing.

Below attic level, the character of the south range is more reflective of the 18th-century remodelling. At ground floor most of the windows have two-stage, pull-up, panelled timber shutters, and the two westerly rooms have fully-panelled interiors. The date of the panelling is uncertain but could be early 18th century. The panelling to the far west is raised and fielded, whereas that in the neighbouring room is not, but has a distinctive cushion moulding over the door heads. Behind this panelling, where the wall is temporarily opened up in the main stair hall, the substrate can be seen to be lath and daub.

The spacious open-well stair has quarter-turn landings and an open string embellished with scrolled brackets. There is a curtail step at the bottom and a moulded, ramped handrail supported on closely-spaced turned balusters, three per tread. Newels are columnar. The stairs lead to an open landing with matching balustrade. The stair joinery has a heavy dark stain but is assumed to be hardwood.

Perhaps the most distinctive room on the first floor is in the northwest corner (over the kitchen). The ceiling has been vaulted with a deep coving at the head of each wall. There is a dentilled architrave, panelling to dado height, and a late 18th- or early 19th-century hob grate and fire surround. Otherwise, the first-floor rooms are distinguished by their various fire surrounds, door joinery and, in some cases, exposed structural members of the 17th-century timber frame. Throughout the house there are a number of chimney pieces, mainly thought to date from the late 18th or early 19th century, some with contemporary or slightly later grates, others having had their openings remodelled with brick in the early 20th century. The joinery of interior and exterior doors also reflects the evolution of the house and the relative status of the rooms within it. Later 19th-century six-panel doors predominate, but a variety of size, construction and ironmongery can be found from earlier periods. Other features such as the kitchen's flagstone floor, chamfered and stopped ceiling beams, and an assortment of cupboards and miscellaneous joinery underline the house's layered phasing.

Temporary opening up has revealed that while the principal members of the 17th-century timber frame remain, a number of the intermediary elements have been replaced with later studwork on which the tiling battens for the mathematical tiles are fixed. Some of the interior walls are finished with lath and plaster rather than lath and daub, as survives in certain parts of the house. Other areas have lost lath and plaster finishes to 20th-century plasterboard and, in some cases, asbestos sheet material, which is currently (2017) being replaced. Some evidence for the position of early window openings survives on the first floor within the structural frame.

Ancillary Buildings and Subsidiary Features

To the north and east of the east range of the farmhouse is a ragstone wall with brick dressings which encloses a small front garden facing onto Knowle Hill.

Kennels and Stable: To the southeast of the house are the remains of a yard with several outbuildings. The west boundary of this yard is a ragstone rubble wall with red brick piers, approximately four metres high and 20 metres long. At the south end it has deteriorated and falls away to the ground. The line of the east boundary is the boundary of the wider site and follows Knowle Hill. At the north end is a range of kennels running east to west under a pitched slate roof. The building has a single storey and is of red brick construction built in stretcher bond. The first four bays have segmental arched brick openings approximately five feet high and are sub-divided into four pens with raised terracotta brick floors. The pens are divided by brick walls built to just below eaves height. At the east end is a larger gable-ended fifth bay with level entrance through a full-height doorway. This has later concrete-block bins, probably feed stores.

South of the kennel there is a stable, rectangular in plan, built of red brick laid in Flemish bond. It has a single door on each of the north, south and west elevations, and a single window opening to the west. The roof is hipped to the north and south and covered in clay tiles with some inset glass tiles. Internally there are the remains of a single stall with a lead-lined, wall-mounted timber trough and timber hay basket. In the northwest corner is a brick-built lean-to with the remains of a sheet metal roof and a timber trough within. Further to the south of the stable there are the ruinous remains of two further 19th-century buildings.

Oast House: To the west of the farmhouse is a small, single-kiln oast house of mid-19th-century date. The building is formed of a cylindrical hop kiln to the west and an attached store to the east. The kiln is constructed of red brick over a ragstone rubble plinth. The brickwork is laid in Flemish bond with blue headers and there is a cogged eaves course. The roof is clay-tiled with a wooden cowl and fantail. There is a vertically-planked timber door to the south. The store is rectangular in plan, also brick-built in Flemish bond with blue headers, and has two storeys. The roof is pitched and hipped at the east end and clad with clay tiles. There are two timber casement windows to each of the north and south elevations at first floor. The east elevation has a pair of large timber-plank doors with iron hinges. Above is a single timber loading door. The north elevation has a first-floor door, originally accessed from an external staircase, now collapsed. Internally, there is a slatted drying floor within the kiln, and doorways connect the kiln and the store at ground and first floors. The ground and first floors of the store are connected by a circular hatch. The conical roof structure of the kiln is a 20th-century replacement.

Other outbuildings include a small, pitch-roofed brick store to the immediate southeast of the oast house; a timber-clad fruit store; a large steel-framed store to the east-southeast of the farmhouse; and a brick-built garage to the northwest of the farmhouse. These buildings are of post-Second World War construction and pursuant to section 1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 it is declared that they are not of special architectural or historic interest.