Mileham Farmhouse

Mileham Farmhouse

A farmhouse of early to mid-19th-century date, probably altered in the late 19th century when briefly converted to two cottages, with late 20th-century extension and alterations.

The building is constructed of red brick with burnt headers laid in Flemish bond, with slate roofs. The original structure consists of a square-plan, two-storey, hip-roofed range with a single-storey side outshut featuring a catslide roof on the southern end. A late 20th-century two-storey extension on the northern side matches the style of the original building, slightly recessed on the front elevation and projecting to the rear. The north end of the southern outshut adjoins a separately listed Grade II barn.

The main range has an altered double-pile plan internally. The two front rooms now form a large single room with a wide repositioned staircase facing the main entrance and a deep niche created by the extension of the room to the rear in the north-east corner. The rear rooms comprise a large kitchen and smaller utility room. The outshut contains a main room with a small lobby to the east providing access to the kitchen and to the north-west corner of the barn. The modern extension contains a single large room.

The first floor has two front bedrooms and a rear bedroom and bathroom, the latter partitioned to create an ensuite bathroom for the eastern of the two bedrooms in the modern extension, all reached off an axial landing.

The principal west elevation is symmetrical, with a central entrance flanked by two windows and two windows on the first floor. These are eight-over-eight timber sash windows in square-headed openings with timber sills. Those on the first floor sit directly under flat eaves soffits; the ground-floor ones have rendered splayed lintels. The entrance has a four-panelled door with four glazed lights at the top. A pair of red brick gable end stacks is present. The southern outshut has paired eight-light timber casement windows with a flat stone or rendered lintel. The 1980s two-storey northern extension has sympathetic fenestration broadly matching the main range, though some sash windows have double-hung sidelights.

The rear east elevation has irregular fenestration. A central entrance with modern timber stable doors is flanked to the south by modern timber triple-casements with a timber lintel, possibly in an original opening, and to the north by a pair of six-pane casements in an opening with a brick segmental arch, which appears to have been inserted into a larger original opening. Evidence of a blocked doorway survives between the window and the late 20th-century extension. The outshut has a small window with a painted lintel. First-floor fenestration is limited to two small square timber casements at the north end of the elevation, with evidence of a tall, centrally placed staircase window surviving in the brickwork. The southern elevation is whitewashed. The outshut has a pair of single-pane modern timber casements, and the first floor has triple six-pane timber casements.

Internally, the closed-string stairs are not original and have been repositioned, consisting of a straight run up to a landing with opposing short flights at the top. In the front room, two plain brick fireplaces have gauged brick segmental arches with modern hoods and grates. The outshut is exposed to the roof with cross beams, rafters and purlin. Doors are mainly modern plank doors, though some original plank and batten doors survive to cupboards in the kitchen and in the door between the kitchen and utility room. A substantial angled iron support to the structure of the stair is present in the kitchen.

On the first floor, two fireplaces have fluted timber surrounds and cast iron grates, though most joinery is modern. The roof structure is largely original with some alteration to the northern hip to accommodate the intersection with the roof of the late 20th-century extension.

A brick farmyard boundary wall with piers topped with angled stone caps runs east from the south-east corner of the outshut to the garage. The garage retains much of its late 19th-century brickwork but has a late 20th-century tile-covered roof with bargeboard-covered gables.