Pastheap Farmhouse

Pastheap Farmhouse

Former farmhouse dating from the late 16th or early 17th century, with minor alterations around 1700 and further modifications in the 19th and 20th centuries. A major modernisation around 1980 brought a 19th-century cartshed into domestic use. The house is timber-framed, with the ground floor underbuilt predominantly in Flemish bond red brick with burnt headers, and the framing above clad with peg-tile. A brick stack on a sandstone base, with a staggered chimneyshaft including some early or possibly original brick, rises through the roof, which is covered in peg-tile.

The original plan is a tall house, originally facing north towards the road, following a 2-room lobby entrance arrangement. An axial stack between the rooms serves back-to-back fireplaces. The hall or kitchen to the left (east) is unusually large, while the parlour to the right is notably small. The front doorway, now blocked, originally led into a stair turret projecting in front of the stack. A bakehouse occupies a lean-to at the rear of the parlour end, with its own rear stack.

The parlour end shows evidence of alteration around 1700, and its fireplace may date from that period. It is possible the room was formerly an unheated service room. The front stair turret may also have been inserted around 1700. The plan itself—one heated room with a service room—is unusual for its scale. The bakehouse is a secondary addition, possibly dating from around 1700 but more likely 19th century. Around 1980, the front doorway was blocked and a new entrance porch built at the parlour end, which also provides a link to the former cartshed. This outbuilding, constructed of brick and set back behind the bakehouse to the west, has been integrated as one large room with its own roof structure of arch-braced tie beams and clasped side purlin construction.

The house rises to two storeys with attics in the roofspace and a cellar beneath the hall or kitchen.

The exterior shows irregular fenestration with three ground floor windows and two first floor windows, all replaced with 20th-century casements featuring a leaded diamond pane effect. The same window type appears elsewhere on the building. The tall main roof is gable-ended to the left and half-hipped to the right, with the rear roof carried down as a catslide over the bakehouse. The former cartshed features two large French windows in its south side (presumably the original cartshed doorways), with a half-hipped roof to both ends.

The interior of the hall or kitchen retains its original large fireplace, built in sandstone ashlar with a chamfered and scroll-stopped oak lintel. The room has a 4-panel ceiling with intersecting axial beams tied into a main crossbeam, all chamfered with scroll stops, and plain joists. A smaller fireplace on the first floor is accompanied by similar axial beams and an original framed crosswall between the two chambers above the hall. The original roof over the hall or kitchen section is constructed in clasped side purlin form with three bays, but this was replaced over the parlour end with a butt purlin roof. The parlour itself appears to be the result of a circa 1700 refurbishment, with a fireplace of similar sandstone construction. Two axial beams here are chamfered with run-out stops. A circa 1700 cupboard, positioned at the back of the fireplace with a fielded panel door hung on H-hinges, survives from this period. The bakehouse retains plain carpentry detailing, with a brick fireplace featuring a bread oven and a high plain oak lintel.