Spencer'S Farmhouse

Spencer's Farmhouse is a late 17th-century farmhouse that was remodelled and extended around 1855. The front wall is built of coursed limestone rubble with chalk window dressings; the wall to the left of the front door is of uncoursed chalk rubble with limestone quoins and window dressings. The right side wall was rebuilt in the early 19th century using English bond brick, while the rear wall is of chalk and limestone rubble. A mid-19th century left side wall is of chalk ashlar with limestone ashlar dressings, and the rear left wall is of Flemish bond brick with flared headers. The roof is covered in stone slates. Brick stacks are present. The house follows a 3-unit lobby-entry plan, with a continuous rear outshut extended to the rear left in the mid-19th century.

The two-storey front facade has a two-window range. It features a flat hood with a panelled soffit over a 6-panelled door, and flat stone arches over three original 3-light leaded casements to the right and one mid-19th century 8-pane sash to the left. The rear wall includes an 18th-century plank door with a drawbar, one 2-light leaded casement, and a gabled roof dormer with an original 2-light leaded casement. The right side has a gabled roof, the left front is hipped, and there’s a ridge stack and a mid-19th century lateral stack in the rear left wing.

In the mid-19th century, a left side wall was constructed as a front wall facing a walled garden and The Green. This wall features stone lintels over 8-pane sashes in a three-window range and a central 4-panelled door with overlight and an early 20th-century porch.

Inside, there are some original 18th-century plank doors alongside mainly mid-19th century four-panelled doors. Mid-19th century marble fireplaces, shutters, and a straight-run staircase opposite the entry in the left side wall are also present. The left room contains an 18th-century china closet and an original chamfered beam cut by the insertion of a mid-19th-century sash in the left side wall; stone flags cover the lobby floor. An original 2-bay collar-truss roof survives over the right side of the house.

A dairy and cheese room, dating back to around 1800, is attached to the right gable wall, built of Flemish bond brick to the rear and squared, coursed chalk to the front, with a tiled roof. It has two storeys, a plank door, and a two-window range with early 20th-century casements. The rear wall incorporates two stone mullioned and double splayed 17th-century windows that have been reset. Inside are chamfered beams, an original framed and winding staircase, cheese shelves on the first floor, and a fine 3-bay roof of curved collar trusses with butt purlins and plank ridge. An early 19th-century brewhouse, now converted to a 20th-century garage, is attached to the front of the cheese room, retaining a reset 3-light leaded casement and a 19th-century pump against a rebuilt left wall.