Batts Farm

Batts Farm is a timber-framed house, likely dating from the 16th century, with subsequent alterations and additions.

The building is principally of timber-frame construction, clad in red brick at ground floor and hung peg tiles at first floor. A sandstone plinth runs along the south side, and there is sandstone in the large end stack to the east; the other stacks are of brick construction. The roof is covered in peg tiles, with doors and windows of timber and varying dates.

The building comprises two bays, east and west, and is one-and-a-half storeys high, lowering to a single storey to the south beneath a catslide roof that runs the full width of the building. The roof is gabled to the east and half-hipped with a gablet to the west, with a distinct kink visible at the centre between the two bays.

Three stacks serve the building: a substantial end stack of probable 17th-century date to the east, and two smaller stacks of probable 19th-century date to the west and north. At ground floor, the west bay is divided into two rooms—one to the north served by the north stack, and one to the south served by the west stack. A single-storey 19th-century outshut extension extends from the north of the west bay, from which a largely straight stair leads up to a small landing within the west bay. The two upper rooms, one over the west bay and one over the east bay, are accessed from this landing.

The entrance front is the single-storey brick and stone south elevation, beneath the catslide roof. An off-centre door is surrounded by a 19th-century open brick porch, with irregular multi-light casement windows on either side. A diagonal brick buttress runs across the wall of the east bay. Each of the two first-floor rooms is lit by a single gable-ended roof dormer, likely late 19th-century insertions.

The north elevation is more irregular, with the 19th-century outshut extending from the west bay. The east bay has windows at ground and first floors; the first-floor window's proportions and position appear to match a corresponding window in the west bay, now blocked by the outshut. A small circular window to the far left of the north elevation lights a recess beside the fireplace in the east bay.

Internally, many elements of the timber frame remain visible. Within the east bay is a large fireplace opening with a timber bressummer. A substantial axial beam runs from the centre of the bressummer to the cross wall dividing the east and west bays; the framework of this cross wall is partially exposed and rests on a continuous masonry plinth. Floor joists run at right angles from the axial beam to the north wall and to a second axial timber to the south. This southern timber shows evidence of having held vertical framing members and is thought to have acted as a wall plate to the original outside wall—the framing now removed, thereby opening up the east bay to the area beneath the catslide.

The first-floor room to the west has a small hearth served by the north flue. Above this hearth is a blocked three-light window with diamond-section mullions. The room to the east is accessed through a round-headed doorway which cuts through the tie beam of the queen post roof truss between the two rooms, and is unheated.