Church Farm House

Church Farm House is a house, likely dating from the early 18th century, and originally a farmhouse. It is built of squared coursed limestone rubble with a stone slate roof. The house has a symmetrical plan, with a main block of two storeys plus an attic and cellar. The ground floor includes an entrance lobby, a parlour, a kitchen, and a projecting rear stair turret. A smaller service wing adjoins the kitchen to the north.

The main block’s front elevation is symmetrical, with four bays. It features flat stone arches over tall rectangular windows, originally with timber mullions and transoms (some of which survive on the ground floor), and wrought-iron opening casements. The central doorway has a moulded timber lintel above a six-panel front door with glazed upper lights. The gabled roof has two attic dormers and end stacks replaced in yellow brick. The rear elevation includes a central projecting stair turret with a hipped roof, and a lean-to extension with a pantiled roof to the left. A single-storey service wing to the north, probably contemporary with the main block, has an attic dormer and end stack. A mid-20th century conservatory has been added to the rear.

Interior features include 18th-century plank and panelled doors, a fireplace in the right-hand ground floor room with a rack (likely a spit rack) above, a further fireplace in the left-hand first floor room, and a timber newel staircase in the rear turret.

The house may have been built by the Perrott family, who held the manor of North Leigh in the early 18th century. It was subsequently owned by the Duke of Marlborough between 1765 and 1886, and let to various tenants. Apart from a small rear extension built before 1876 and a conservatory added in the 1950s, the building has undergone limited alterations.

Church Farm House is designated at Grade II for its architectural interest as a little-altered example of a formally-planned farmhouse of the early 18th century.