Stone Cross Farmhouse

Stone Cross Farmhouse

Former farmhouse dating from the mid to late 15th century, with early 17th-century improvements and mid-19th-century refurbishment, followed by some 20th-century modernisation. The building is timber-framed throughout. The ground floor is underbuilt with Flemish bond red brick incorporating some burnt headers. The framing above is hung with peg-tile. The building features brick stacks, the oldest of which stands on a stone base, along with brick chimneyshafts. The roof is covered in peg-tile.

The house is arranged in an L-plan, facing south, with two storeys and attics within the roofspace of the main block. The main block originally followed a 3-room-and-through-passage plan typical of an open hall house, possibly of Wealden type. The hall occupied what is now the entrance hall and extended a short distance into the present living room (that short distance being the original through passage). The hall was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The western end served as the service area and was floored from the beginning. The upper end was probably also floored from the beginning, with a solar or master chamber at first-floor level. The 2-room crosswing at the right (east) end projects forward, with a rear kitchen and front parlour, each with lateral stacks. A former lean-to bakehouse occupied the left (east) end with an end stack.

The present layout is essentially the result of 19th and 20th-century modernisations. The hall fireplace and floor were likely inserted in the late 16th or early 17th century. Early in the 19th or early 20th century, the stack was rotated, the front doorway relocated to its present position, and the present living room was created by removing the crosswall at the lower end of the hall. The early 17th-century work included rebuilding much of the original structure as a parlour crosswing.

Externally, the front elevation is irregular with a 2:1 window arrangement. Most first-floor windows are 19th-century casements, with 20th-century windows elsewhere, including canted bay windows serving the living room and the front end of the crosswing, both containing diamond-pane leaded glass. Other windows have rectangular panes of leaded glass. The front doorway, positioned at the right end of the main block, contains a 20th-century 2-panel door behind a contemporary gabled porch. A rear doorway, positioned at the back of the old passage, contains a 19th-century panelled door under a flat hood on shaped brackets. Both the main block and crosswing roofs are gable-ended. The rear elevation has windows similar to those at the front, with some containing diamond panes of old leaded glass.

The interior retains evidence of its medieval origins, though it has been largely modified by 19th and 20th-century work. Where early carpentry is exposed, it is relatively well preserved. At ground-floor level, the medieval service end can still be traced in the room behind the living room. Here the first floor is supported on joists of massive scantling, including a gap (defined by a trimmer) for stair or ladder access to the first floor, later filled by late 16th/early 17th-century hollow-chamfered joists. The basic frame of the crosswall serving the hall is also exposed, containing an original oak door frame with an elliptical-headed arch and moulded surround. Its position suggests it was one of a pair serving the buttery and pantry, and the axial wall between the back room and front living room may be original, though it is now plastered over. On the hall side of the crosswall, a moulded and brattished rail is exposed at the rear at approximately present first-floor level.

At first-floor level, evidence of the original crosswall survives at the upper end of the hall, though the close studding at ground-floor level appears to be early 17th-century. At the service end, the tie beam and end posts remain, though the chamber has been enlarged over the passage to the rear of the stack. The medieval roof appears to be relatively intact as far as can be seen. It consists of four bays—two over the formerly open hall and one at each end—constructed of tie-beam trusses with crown posts. The closed trusses at each end of the hall had curving down-braces, which remain visible at the former service end. The open truss over the hall is missing its arch-braces, but the massive tie beam features a hollow-chamfered soffit, an octagonal crown post with moulded cap and base, and four-way up-braces (the longitudinal ones now removed). The common rafters are A-frame of large scantling. The roofspace over the hall was inaccessible at the time of survey, but the timbers are reported to be smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire.

Evidence of the late 16th/early 17th-century flooring of the hall appears in the small room behind the stack, where exposed joists across the former passage are chamfered with run-out stops onto a chamfered and step-stopped beam. No carpentry is exposed in the entrance hall (the former hall), where the fireplace has been blocked, with only some of the stone back partly visible. Little carpentry is exposed in the early 17th-century crosswing. The partition between the entrance hall and rear room (the present kitchen) is close-studded, and the front end of the crosswing is also close-studded framing. The fireplaces are blocked, and the only exposed beam in the front parlour is chamfered with step stops. The front section of the roof comprises two bays of tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins and wind-braces.

Stone Cross Farmhouse is a notable medieval hall house situated close to another similar building also named Stone Cross.