College Farmhouse

College Farmhouse is a timber-framed house with later brick infilling and replacements, dating from the early 17th century. The main range consists of two storeys with fully accessible attics, arranged in three bays running roughly north-south, with the southern bay later extended further south. A single-storey outshut with a deep catslide roof runs along the west side, contemporary with or shortly after the original house. An early 17th-century two-storey, two-bay extension projects to the west, and a nineteenth-century single-storey brick extension was added to the north.

The ground floor is clad in red and brown brick, largely laid in Flemish bond and painted on the south and east elevations, while the upper floor is clad in painted weatherboarding, replaced in the later twentieth century. The building stands on a stone and brick plinth and has a brick stack with plain tile roofs. The main range has a shallow half-hipped roof to the north and an extended hipped roof with a small gablet to the south. The entrance, reached through the outshut, has a later twentieth-century door. A glazed door has been inserted into the east elevation. Windows are later twentieth-century two- and three-light timber casements on both floors, with a flat-roofed dormer casement inserted in the outshut. An original window opening in the north gable wall of the attic has been replaced by a small twentieth-century casement below protruding eaves. A cruciform brick stack of narrow red and brown brick stands between the southern and central bays.

The interior reveals exposed timber framing and internal partitions throughout most of the house. The main range has a robust timber frame with jowelled principal posts. The masonry plinth and formerly external timber frame of the original outer west wall, featuring small panelling with a mid-rail, is now internal. A slighter timber partition runs north-south on a timber cill. On both floors, stop-chamfered axial ceiling beams have chamfers ranging from 1½ inches to 2 inches in depth; exposed joists are generally unchamfered, though some are replaced. A double stopped girding beam sits on the first-floor northern bay. Timber frame components in the bays north of the stack are numbered and inscribed with what are considered to be apotropaic marks. A partially blocked small ground-floor fireplace opens to the north face of the stack beneath a chamfered timber bressumer. The southern ground-floor room contains a large open fireplace with restored brick jambs, a Horsham stone hearth, and a reset chamfered bressumer inscribed "1677 AD" at a later date, which may relate to an earlier inscription or episode of work. The axial ceiling beam above has a 2-inch chamfer with a stepped stop. First-floor chambers above the stack were also heated, and the bressumer to the former fireplace in the central room remains exposed. The original stair to the first floor has been removed, but the stair from first floor to attic, located west of the stack, survives with a carved newel featuring a chamfered finial. Throughout the house are wide plank doors of three boards each, with strap hinges in plain pegged architraves. A plank door to the attic retains a nailed iron latch with a cocks-head plate and a strap hinge.

The western two-storey extension has an axial chamfered beam with lambs tongue stops to the ground-floor room. Exposed framing in the room above indicates a substantial first-floor chamber but with no visible evidence of heating.

Within the roof space, the north, south, and west gable walls are infilled in wattle and daub. The main roof is constructed in three bays with a single row of clasped side purlins and no ridge piece. The principal trusses have dropped tie beams—a device whereby the tie beam and attic floor are set below eaves height to provide greater headroom from floor to ridge—though in this case the roof is also constructed with upper collars and ties. The western extension has a side purlin roof.