Fosters Farmhouse

Fosters Farmhouse is a timber-framed farmhouse probably of late 15th-century origin, partly remodelled in the early to mid 16th century and again in the early 17th century, with a circa early 18th-century addition. The building stands on a stone plinth with ground floor underbuilt in brick and first floor tile-hung, beneath a peg-tile roof with brick stacks.

The house has evolved through a complex sequence of phases. The overall plan is T-shaped, with a main range facing west and a rear wing at right angles. The main range originally comprised two cells, with smoke-blackening in the roofspace indicating that the north cell was an open hall of probable late 15th-century date. In the mid 16th century the hall was floored and a smoke bay introduced at the north end, probably with an adjacent stair to the east. There may have been a cross passage entrance within the lower end (south) cell. In the early 17th century the smoke bay was floored and replaced with an axial stack inserted into the putative cross passage, featuring back-to-back fireplaces heating both rooms with a lobby entrance facing the stack. The north room became the kitchen and the south room a parlour. The existing stair in the north-east corner of the north room probably dates from this phase, as may the rear service wing. A one-room plan addition was made in the circa early 18th century at the north end under a roofline, heated by a left end stack, probably serving as a kitchen and upgrading the 17th-century kitchen to a second parlour.

The exterior presents two storeys with a symmetrical three-bay west front to the main range plus one bay to the lower-roofed addition at the left end. The main range has a ragstone plinth and steps rise to a central 19th-century plank door with flat porch hood. A gabled roof sits above, with an axial stack featuring staggered triple shafts with corbelled coping. Casement windows throughout have square leaded panes; the four-light windows flanking the door have been re-glazed in the 20th century while the two- and three-light windows are probably 18th century. A 20th-century conservatory addition stands at the south end with a doorway into the south room.

The interior is rich in early carpentry. The north room of the main range contains an early to mid 16th-century step-stopped chamfered crossbeam with plain joists on the south side, while the north side joists are chamfered and belong to the circa early 17th-century flooring over the smoke bay. A 17th-century oak stair with a contemporary plank door rises in the north-east corner; redundant mortises in the ceiling beams indicate it stands on the site of an earlier stair associated with the smoke bay phase. Two blocked doorways survive in the framing on the rear wall. The 17th-century fireplace has ragstone jambs and an original oak lintel, with a bake oven opening in the left-hand jamb and two keeping places, one formerly with a door, in the fireback. The south room preserves its original fireplace, similar to that in the parlour. The soffit of the massive crossbeam has been dressed off except at the east end where it is chamfered with big bar stops; this detail, combined with evidence in the roofspace, suggests the south end may have been largely rebuilt in the 17th-century phase. Exposed joists survive, and the ceiling is coved in front of the fireplace to support the chamber above. First-floor rooms in the main range preserve exposed ceiling beams.

The north end wall of the original house is plastered in a pattern of whorls and is heavily sooted, as is a closed partition just north of the inserted stack. This plaster and sooting presumably represents the extent of the original open hall from the medieval phase. The rafters of the clasped purlin queen post roof between are not evenly smoke-blackened, and there has been considerable repair including an added ridgeboard and new timber scarfed into the old. The smoke bay is marked by a tie between the purlins; framing below the tie has been removed and the smoke bay partition never rose to the apex but stopped at the level of the tie, which is heavily sooted on the north side but clean on the south side. On either side of the stack and south of it the roof is largely constructed of re-used timbers, some sooted and others with redundant mortises.

The farmhouse has group value with a threshing barn to the south west. It is a very unspoilt traditional farmhouse with a long building history.