Church Farmhouse Including Bakehouse Approximately 1.5 Metres To The East

Church Farmhouse including Bakehouse approximately 1.5 metres to the east

A farmhouse built in the late 16th or early 17th century, with alterations dating to the mid-19th century and further modernisation circa 1960-70. The building is timber-framed, with the ground floor underbuilt in 19th-century Flemish bond red brick with burnt headers. Above this, the timber-framing is tile-hung, whilst the east end wall is weatherboarded. The building features a brick stack and chimneyshaft, and a peg-tile roof.

The farmhouse is arranged as a 4-room plan facing north. An entrance lobby containing the main stair is positioned left of centre. The left (east) end contains a parlour, and right of centre sits the hall, each with stacks backing onto the entrance lobby whose flues join into a single axial chimneyshaft above. An unheated room occupies the right (west) end, with a fifth room created by converting a lean-to outshot into domestic use.

The present layout represents an adaptation of the original late 16th or early 17th-century 3-room lobby entrance plan house. The left end parlour remains largely intact, though part of its front has been partitioned for a lavatory and the stack has been rebuilt. It is believed that a large stack originally serving back-to-back fireplaces occupied the full width of the present entrance lobby. The hall, which may also have served as the kitchen, was originally somewhat larger. The partition between it and the unheated room has been removed and re-erected slightly further eastwards. The unheated room was originally the service end, with mortises in the headbeam of the crosswall and the joists indicating it was divided by an axial wall into two rooms, with an original stair rising against the back wall—these were presumably a buttery and dairy. A secondary outshot at the right (west) end now serves as the kitchen.

The main house is 2 storeys with attics in the roofspace.

The exterior presents an irregular 4-window front fitted with 20th-century replacement casements with glazing bars. Similar windows were inserted into the rear wall in the 20th century; the rear wall was formerly blind. The front doorway, positioned left of centre, contains a 19th-century plank door set behind a contemporary gabled porch on plain posts. The main roof is tall, gable-ended to the left and hipped to the right, where it extends over the outshot. The left end gable is weatherboarded and contains an early 19th-century window, the centre light of which features iron glazing bars including the top tier arranged as a Gothic arcade.

Despite 19th and 20th-century modernisation, considerable original carpentry survives. Most of the larger rooms feature axial beams, whilst the former hall and kitchen has a 4-panel intersecting beam ceiling. All beams are chamfered with step stops. Much framing is exposed on the first floor, displaying large members with broad curving tension braces. The roof comprises a 4-bay arrangement of tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins and queen struts. Most of the common rafter couples are original.

A small 19th-century bakehouse stands alongside the farmhouse. It is a small room with a gable-ended roof and a large east end stack built of brick. The bakehouse is a weatherboarded frame on brick footings with a peg-tiled roof.