Hole Farmhouse

Farmhouse. Dating to the early to mid-19th century, it was refurbished and enlarged around 1970. The construction incorporates exposed timber framing, heavily underbuilt with coursed blocks of sandstone ashlar, where the frame is "nogged" (infilled) with smaller blocks of the same stone. The extension is built with local ashlar, and features brick stacks, one built on a stone base, and chimneyshafts; the roof is covered in peg tiles.

The original house sits in a valley bottom, built against a steep hillside, and was initially a small house facing southwest. It possesses a four-room plan arranged in three cells. A two-room section was added around 1970 on the southeastern side, containing a larger front kitchen with a stack backing onto a small utility room. The remaining two rooms comprise the original 17th-century house, which originally followed a two-room lobby entrance plan with a larger living room to the left, heated by an axial stack backing onto an unheated service room, now situated in the centre. The house is two storeys high, with attic rooms in the roofspace of the original section.

The exterior is pleasingly irregular, with a four-window front overall, featuring circa-1970 timber-framed windows with iron-framed casements containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The two-window section on the right is the 1970 extension. The original section is a two-window arrangement in three uneven bays, revealing the internal layout. The narrow central bay serves as the entrance and displays the original doorframe, with a chamfered surround and a circa-1970 Tudor-style door. The original timber frame is visible on the three external walls and is largely intact above first-floor level, constructed using heavy timbers with curving tension braces. Some framing, appearing to be constructed from reused timbers, is also visible at first-floor level behind the extension. The roof is gable-ended to the left and hipped to the right. The section over the older part rises higher, and a half-hip is used to lower the ridge to meet the 20th-century roofline.

Internally, the basic structure of the 17th-century house survives. A large fireplace has stone ashlar jambs, a brick back, and an oak lintel; an oven doorway is visible through the left jamb. The axial beam and joists in the same room are chamfered with step stops. The service rooms have plain joists, some possibly replacements. The main chamber features a chamfered axial beam. The wall posts have large "jowls" (protrusions) and support tie-beam trusses with queen struts and clasped side purlins.

Hole Farmhouse represents a good example of a small 17th-century house.