The Leadenporch House

The Leadenporch House is a substantial farmhouse, now a house, dating primarily to the early 14th century, with significant remodelling in the mid to late 17th century and alterations and extensions in the early 19th century. The building is constructed of coursed squared marlstone with ashlar dressings, covered by Stonesfield-slate and Welsh-slate roofs, and features brick stacks. Originally a hall house, it was altered to a three-unit through-passage plan and later extended to the rear.

The two-storey front has a three-window facade, rising from a deep, chamfered medieval plinth. It features limestone mullioned windows with labels: three lights to the first floor and five, four, and four lights to the ground floor. A tall, blocked transomed window, constructed of marlstone with cusped heads and blind tracery, sits between bays two and three. A pointed arch doorway, also with continuous mouldings and a moulded hood with head stops, is located to the right of the transomed window. A small, mutilated corbel, possibly medieval, is situated to the extreme left. The right-hand end wall features the chamfered jamb of an opening or arch, along with a 19th-century Gothick doorway. The steep-pitched roof has stacks to both gables, one aligned to the left of the through passage.

The rear of the house includes ovolo-moulded wood-mullioned windows (three-light), an early 19th-century two-light casement, and a tall, pointed window, likely 19th century but potentially replacing an earlier feature. A rear wing, returning from a rebuilt left-hand gable wall, is probably early 19th century, possibly incorporating part of a 17th-century stair projection, and has segmental-arched casements.

Inside, the former hall contains a wide inglenook fireplace with a cambered, chamfered bressumer and an inserted floor with cased spine and lateral beams. The “parlour” bay includes a cellar with 17th-century chamfered joists and beams. The service bay exhibits elaborate plasterwork and a marble fireplace dating from approximately 1840.

The roof is a particularly notable feature, consisting of raised-cruck trusses over the service end (two bays) and three narrower bays over the hall. The trusses have arch-braced collars and king posts strutted to the principals, with thin curved braces originally rising to the ridge beam (one of which survives). Two rows of through purlins are supported by curved windbraces, with the lower braces now absent over the service end. The principals have stop-splayed scarf joints with under-squinted and sallied abutments. The hall trusses are heavily soot-encrusted, while the other trusses are also blackened, despite a timber-framed infill to the dividing truss. The purlins over the "parlour" section may be 17th century, potentially replacing an earlier roof originally formed as a cross-wing.

The Leadenporch House is considered one of the earliest and most complete medieval hall houses in the Banbury region.