The Old Farmhouse

THE OLD FARMHOUSE

A timber-framed farmhouse, possibly a former manor house, standing at Hadlow on Hartlake Road, Golden Green. The building dates from the mid or late 15th century and was refurbished to a high standard in the early 17th century. It underwent late 19th-century alterations and was renovated in 1971. The ground floor was underbuilt in brick during the 19th century, with most of this replaced in 1971. The first floor is clad in peg-tiles, and the roof is covered in peg-tiles with a tall half-hipped profile to the right. A late 19th-century brick extension in ochre-coloured brick projects from the south-western end. The building retains brick stacks and original chimneyshafts, most notably an impressive cluster of six tall octagonal shafts of early 17th-century brick.

The house follows a T-plan with two storeys and attics in the roofspace. The main block faces south-east and contains a 4-room lobby entrance plan. The south-western room is a single-room parlour in a gabled crosswing added in the late 19th century, with a rear gable-end stack. Next to this is the inner room of the medieval house, which became the little parlour in the 17th century and now serves as the entrance hall containing the main stair. Beyond this is the hall, now the main parlour. The 17th-century lobby entrance sits between these rooms, fronting a large axial stack that serves the rear kitchen block and surrounding rooms. At the north-eastern end is a study occupying the medieval through passage and service end. A rear wing projects at right angles behind the stack, overlapping the entrance hall, with an unheated narrow service room behind.

The original 15th-century house had a 3-room-and-through-passage plan. At its centre was a 2-bay hall, open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire, with storeyed ends. To the left lay the inner room (now the entrance hall), showing evidence of a jetty at first-floor level. To the right, the present study contains remains of a through passage with two small service rooms (buttery, pantry, or dairy) and a stair to the chamber above; this end shows no evidence of jetting. In the early 17th century, the house was substantially improved. The through passage was abandoned in favour of the present lobby entrance, the hall was floored over, and a large stack was added capable of serving six fireplaces, including those in the new rear block. The present main stair is 20th-century but likely replaces an earlier stair. It remains unclear which ground-floor rooms, if any, functioned as the kitchen; all appear to be high-status spaces.

The front elevation is irregularly fenestrated. At the left end stands the gabled end of the 19th-century extension, containing tripartite sash windows and moulded bargeboards. The main block windows—four on the first floor, three on the ground floor, and three hipped dormers—contain 20th-century casements with rectangular panes of leaded glass. The front doorway, left of centre, houses a 20th-century door. Old photographs, including one held in the National Monument Record, show the first floor originally clad with domino tiles. Odd pieces of original timber framing are visible on the right end and back walls, including the jambs of the passage rear doorway. The gable end of the 17th-century kitchen wing is exposed, displaying the relatively slight scantling of 17th-century carpentry. The rear block frame is close-studded.

The interior preserves extensive remains of the medieval house alongside its 17th-century additions. Each end of the old house retains relatively close-set joists of very large scantling. In the inner room and entrance hall, there is evidence of the jetty at that end, and at the other end part of the lower-side screen of the passage survives. The screen and mortises in the joists show two arch-headed doorways into the service rooms and a third to a stair (defined by a trimmer). The hall side of the passage contains a spere screen with a wide shoulder-headed arch, later reduced to a central doorway in the 17th century.

The hall features a 17th-century 4-panel intersecting beam ceiling with chamfered timbers throughout. The main axial beam bears scroll stops, the crossbeams have run-out stops, and the joists display bar-scroll stops. The large fireplace is brick with moulded stone ashlar jambs and a chamfered oak lintel (possibly a replacement). The entrance hall and little parlour contain a brick fireplace with a chamfered Tudor arch oak lintel. The finest surviving 17th-century fireplace serves the rear block chamber, with stone jambs, a Tudor arch oak lintel, and a moulded surround with sunk spandrels. Remains of another fireplace directly below it appear too grand for kitchen use. Other first-floor fireplaces have been blocked or altered. All 17th-century beams and most joists are chamfered with scroll stops. The 17th-century stack disturbed part of the medieval upper hall crosswall, but it survives nearly complete at the lower end.

At first-floor level, pairs of curving tension braces flank a central post; above the tie-beam sits a crown post with down-braces to the tie and up-braces to the collar purlin. The hall chamber ceiling construction apparently affected the removal of the central tie-beam and crown post, though evidence of its 4-way bracing remains. The hall roof timbers are smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. Over the inner room and solar is a gablet collar with evidence of a hipped roof. The 17th-century block possesses a roof of tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins.

This is a remarkably well-preserved 2-phase house, with the medieval structure surviving in unusually complete form. Documentation of the site dates back to the 14th century. Notably, during the first half of the 17th century, the house was owned by two men who identified themselves as gentlemen. An RCHM measured survey with plans and elevations was undertaken in January 1989.