The Old Farmhouse

The Old Farmhouse is a former farmhouse of late 15th and early 16th century origin, with significant late 16th and early 17th century improvements and late 17th century alterations (possibly dated 1671 by an inscription on one of the beams). The building was refurbished with an extension around 1984.

The structure is timber-framed on coursed sandstone footings. The ground floor front is underbuilt in Flemish bond red brick with decorative burnt headers, the framing above is hung with peg-tile, and the south-east end displays exposed framing down to the footings. A brick stack on a stone base with brick chimneyshaft (incorporating old brick) rises through the building, topped with a peg-tile roof.

The house faces south-west and follows a T-plan with two main storeys. The main block has a basic two-room plan: the right (south-east) room is the unheated service end, still divided into two smaller rooms on each floor by an axial partition; the left room is the hall, which serves as the main living room and has a gable-end stack backing onto a lean-to outshot at that end. A single-room extension projecting to the rear, added in the 20th century, now contains the present kitchen.

The present layout results from late 17th century alterations that probably reduced the farmhouse size. Before this, there was likely another room where the outshot now stands. Originally, the main room was a late medieval hall, open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The service end dates wholly from the late medieval period and was always two storeys, always subdivided into two smaller rooms per floor. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the hall was floored over and a timber-framed stack was inserted, later replaced by the present brick and stone stack in the late 17th century. Also in the late 17th century, the hall roof was rebuilt.

The irregular two-window front contains 19th and 20th century casements with diamond panes of leaded glass; the hall features a canted bay window. The front doorway, reached by a flight of stone steps, contains an old part-glazed plank door under a monopitch hood. The main roof is gable-ended. The right (south-west) end shows late medieval framing with large panels and curving tension braces. Each floor has two small windows with diamond mullions, only one retaining original mullions. The circa 1984 extension follows the style of the older section.

Interior carpentry is well-preserved. The late medieval work is plain but of relatively large scantling. The service end joists are chamfered with step stops. The late 16th and early 17th century axial beam in the hall is chamfered with canted step stops, and the joists are chamfered with step stops. The fireplace has stone jambs and brick back with a timber-framed front (the right jamb cut out by stone), a low Tudor arch with chamfered surround, and a lintel with a moulded cornice cut from solid. The roof over the service end is original, employing one bay of crown post construction; it has been replaced over the hall, though the stub of the crown purlin remains, smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. The hall roof was replaced in the late 17th century with butt purlin construction, one timber of which bears the date 1671.