Pearsons Farmhouse

Pearsons Farmhouse is a house of mid to late 17th-century origins, possibly a remodelling of an earlier building, with significant alterations and extensions dating from the late 19th century. The main structure is timber-framed with the ground floor underbuilt in brick and the first floor tile-hung. The 19th-century addition is brick-built to the ground floor with a tile-hung first floor featuring a cogged brick cornice at first-floor level. The roofs are covered in peg tiles with brick stacks.

The house faces east-north-east, with a main block that originally followed a 17th-century three-room lobby entrance plan. The hall and parlour occupy the right (north) side, heated by back-to-back fireplaces in an axial stack. The left (south) room was unheated and originally divided into two service rooms, probably a buttery and pantry. Around the mid-19th century, a rear left kitchen wing was added at right angles to the old service end, with heating from a west-end stack. Approximately in the 1880s, a front right wing was added at right angles containing a principal room and a new stair. Probably at the same time, a farm office was built to the rear of the house, connected to the 19th-century kitchen by a series of outbuildings now absorbed into domestic use, creating a rear courtyard. A one-room detached block immediately north of the house, said to have been used as hoppers' accommodation, may have originally been a 19th-century carriage house.

The building is two storeys with an attic. The front elevation is asymmetrical with a 2:1 window arrangement, the single window serving the 19th-century wing. The roof is half-hipped at the left end and hipped at the right end, with a gable to the front of the wing featuring deep eaves and open timberwork in the gable. The axial stack has a 19th or 20th-century brick shaft. A deep 19th-century gabled porch sits in the angle between the main block and wing, with detailing in the gable matching that of the wing. The porch has a 19th-century panelled outer door. Late 19th-century two- and three-light casements probably serve the main block. The wing features a late 19th-century four-pane plate glass sash to the first floor. The ground floor incorporates a canted bay with a hipped roof containing a French window with margin glazing flanked by two-pane plate glass sashes. The outbuilding immediately to the right (north) is constructed in handmade brick at ground level with tile-hanging at first-floor level. It has paired plank carriage doors to the left and a first-floor casement to the right with square leaded panes. The farm office has a gabled peg-tile roof, a rear lateral chimney stack, a 19th-century door, and a tripartite plate glass sash window on the east side.

The 17th-century hall contains a large cross beam positioned close to the fireplace with chamfered stopped joists. The joist arrangement in front of the fireplace suggests there may have been a framed stack predating the existing chimney. The partition dividing the service end has been removed. The old parlour has renewed ceiling beams and a rebuilt fireplace. On the first floor, the chamber over the hall features jewel scroll stops. Posts of the wall framing with formed jowls survive to sole plate level in places. The first floor includes several 18th-century two-panel doors. The 19th-century single-storey kitchen has an exposed clasped purlin and queen strut roof, along with a massive fireplace featuring a timber lintel. A bread oven was formerly associated with the fireplace. The room in the 19th-century wing contains an original Devon marble chimney-piece with a pretty tiled surround and a shelf for displaying ornaments fixed to the walls below the ceiling. The staircase, dating from circa the 1880s, has turned balusters.

The roof appears to feature a staggered butt purlin arrangement, though it was not thoroughly inspected.