Slowery Farmhouse

Slowery Farmhouse is a former farmhouse dating from the early to mid 17th century, with substantial 19th and 20th-century extensions, notably in 1924 by R. Brown. The original part was timber-framed on coursed sandstone footings, with the ground floor later underbuilt with Flemish bond red brick, leaving the original footings exposed. The timber framing above is clad with peg tiles. Extensions were constructed in a matching style. The building features brick stacks, one on a sandstone base, and brick chimneyshafts, with a peg-tile roof.

The original plan was a four-room lobby entrance house facing southeast. A small room at the southwest end was later united with the adjacent room. Axial stacks between these rooms serve back-to-back fireplaces. A parlour at the right end also has an axial stack. A rear block was added to the right of centre. The present layout largely reflects the 1924 refurbishment, with the house previously being smaller, occupying the left-hand three-room section of the main block. The original house comprised a lobby entrance, a service room and kitchen to the left of the stack, and a parlour to the right. Roof features suggest the original house may have ended at the left end of the kitchen, although an overhanging jetty complicates this interpretation.

The farmhouse is two storeys high with attic space in the roof. The exterior presents a regular, though not symmetrical, three-window front dating from 1924, featuring windows with brick mullions on the ground floor and timber mullion-and-transom gabled half dormers above. The wide transom in the older section represents the original wall plate of the frame. The front lobby entrance doorway, located to the left of centre, has a plank door with cover strips, sheltered by a flat hood. The main roof is half-hipped at both ends.

Inside, the former kitchen features a chamfered cross beam with run-out stops. The kitchen fireplace has been relined with brick, but retains a probably original cambered and chamfered oak lintel. The parlour, too small to accommodate a beam, has plain axial joists. It contains a good fireplace with sandstone ashlar and a chamfered Tudor arch to the oak lintel. Two similar, smaller fireplaces are on the first floor. The parlour bay appears to have been wider than the rest, projecting to the rear, possibly to accommodate a staircase. The roof structure consists of tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins. The left end bay is likely a 19th-century replacement. A unique feature in the original front right corner is the shaped jowl of the wall post, designed to take the wall plate at a lower level than the gable-end tie.