Mays Farmhouse

Mays Farmhouse is a former farmhouse dating probably from the 16th century, with substantial refurbishment in the late 17th century and extensions and alterations in the late 19th century. The original section is timber-framed, but most of the building is underbuilt with red brick; the framing above remains tile-hung. A newer section was built in the same style. The building has brick stacks and chimneyshafts and a peg-tile roof.

The original house was a double-depth, two-room-wide building facing north-east, with end stacks and a central entrance hall containing the main stair. A rear block contains a former kitchen and service room. The larger rear room, originally the kitchen and now a dining room, has an axial stack backing onto an unheated service room, now the kitchen. A late 19th-century addition forms a symmetrical two-window front.

The front block is a late 19th-century addition built in front of a late 17th-century two-room-plan house, which appears to have been built inside the shell of a probable 16th-century structure. It proved difficult to determine the layout of the earlier house, even whether it was originally floored, though evidence suggests that the existing late 17th-century stack replaced a framed smoke bay.

The front block has 4-pane sashes with low brick segmental arches over the ground-floor windows, and a part-glazed 4-panel door behind a gabled porch on plain posts. The roof is hipped at both ends. The rear block, the older section, has 19th and 20th-century casement windows, and its taller roof is also hipped at both ends.

The interior of the rear block retains considerable early carpentry. Main beams and some joists are plain chamfered, those over the former service room/present kitchen being of large scantling. The former kitchen fireplace has been relined with 20th-century brick, but its chamfered oak lintel is likely original, dating to the late 17th century. Evidence for the 16th-century house is difficult to discern below roof level. The wall plate and tie beams are lower than attic level, suggesting that the attic floor was inserted in the late 17th century. The roof is carried on common rafter couples with lap-jointed collars. The rafters are clean, except those in the bay containing the present stack, which are blackened, and evidence of timbers incorporated into the brick stack provides evidence of the framed smoke bay.