Hale Farmhouse

House. Dating from the 15th century, Hale Farmhouse has undergone alterations and extensions in the mid- to late 16th, 18th, and 20th centuries. It is timber-framed with exposed framing and plaster infill on a sandstone base, with a tile-hung rear and return elevations and some red brick. The roof is tiled, with a probable hall house origin, later extended to a continuous jettied range with a lobby entry plan. The building has two storeys on a plinth, featuring a moulded bresummer to the jetty on moulded brackets, returned on a dragon post. The ground floor has a small panel frame and the first floor has close studding. The roof is hipped to the left and half-hipped to the right, with stacks centrally right and clustered centrally left, and a central hipped dormer. The 20th-century fenestration includes seven irregularly spaced leaded cross windows on the first floor and three large, three-light mullioned and transomed windows on the ground floor. A 16th-century wave-moulded rib and stud door is centrally located on the left, with a rectangular fanlight above. The right return has a jetty and a moulded bargeboarded half-hipped gable on a doubled wall plate. The left return wing is tile-hung and of lobby entry plan, with two storeys, a cluster of stacks to the centre left (with a blocked doorway under the tiles), and a 20th-century rebuilt stack at the end left, projecting outwards. This wing has four wooden casements on the first floor and three mullioned and transomed windows on its ground floor. Rear extensions, dating to the 18th and 20th centuries, form a small courtyard. The right return wing likely represents the earliest phase and currently features a 16th-century clasped purlin roof with diminished principals, reusing smoke-blackened rafters, though this may be a later addition to the front range. The joining bay of the wing and the main range mixes framing and roofing elements, complicating the order of precedence. The main range has a clasped purlin roof, taller than the side wing, with extensively moulded beams throughout. The parlour, located at the junction of the two wings, contains 17th-century bolection moulded panelling with a dado and frieze, brought in from elsewhere and cut to fit the room, with some early 20th-century additions made to order. Stop-chamfered crossed beams are in the upper ceilings. The interior includes a stack with inglenooks, a bread oven, and round-backed minor fireplaces, as well as a turned baluster single flight stair.