Bittleford Farmhouse With Attached Dairy

Bittleford Farmhouse with Attached Dairy

This farmhouse was formerly the home farmhouse for the Pentillie estate. It dates from the mid to late 17th century, with a rear addition from the late 17th to early 18th century. A dairy was added in the late 18th to early 19th century, followed by further 19th-century additions and alterations, with few later changes.

The building is constructed of slatestone rubble with roughcast rendering. It has a hipped slate roof with ridge tiles. Stacks include one to the right end and a rear lateral hall stack to the left, both in rubble with brick shafts, and a gable end stack to the rear wing.

The original plan is a 2-room arrangement with a central passage, possibly originally a through passage. The left side contains a large hall-kitchen heated by a rear lateral stack. The right side has a smaller service room heated by an end stack. Around 1700, a rear wing was added to the left with a single room, heated by a gable end stack and connected to the main range by a straight stair. Later in the 18th century, a stair was inserted at the rear of the passage. Probably in the 19th century, a single-storey unheated outshut was added to the left side of the rear wing as a dairy. Around 1800, a large dairy was added to the left of the hall-kitchen to serve the Pentillie estate farms. The hall-kitchen has since been partitioned into two rooms.

The exterior presents 2 storeys in an asymmetrical 4-window range. A gabled, open-fronted porch to the right is possibly originally storied and has been rebuilt; it has lime mortar in the porch and earth mortar in the main wall. The inner doorway is unusually wide, with a wooden-studded door glazed at the top and moulded frame. Windows include: 2-light 8-pane and 2-light 6-pane casements to the right with L hinges; a 20th-century casement at ground floor to the left; a 3-light 8-pane casement with segmental head at ground floor, a 3-light 6-pane casement with L hinges and a raking dormer above, and a 2-light casement at first floor end to the left. The attached dairy has a half-hipped roof, with a 3-light casement and plain door with cambered heads, a 2-light 20th-century casement at ground and first floor to the right, and a 12-light 6-pane casement with L hinges at ground floor to the left. The gable end has been partially rebuilt in the 20th century with a 2-light casement with cambered brick head to the side. The rear of the main range has a 2-light casement at first floor.

The rear wing is 2-storey with a central inserted plain door and casements of 2-light and 3-light types to either side; a 2-light casement lights the stair to the left, and a 3-light 6-pane casement with L hinges is at first floor centre. The external gable end has a stack. The outer side of the wing has two 2-light 2-pane casements at first floor. A single-storey unheated outshut is attached at ground floor with a 20th-century window and rooflights.

The interior features a front door with strap hinges decorated with chevron, and a loop for a draw bar. The passage is unusually wide with a step down to the right room and a step up to the hall to the left. The hall has been partitioned and has a slate paved floor. Two stairs have been inserted: a straight stair at the higher end of the hall, and another in the passage dividing right and left. The rear parlour has a 2-bay ceiling divided by a boxed beam with an ovolo-moulded plaster cornice. Different plaster moulding runs along the inner wall where the room was previously subdivided for a passage from the doorway in the wing. The gable end fireplace has been rebuilt; it formerly contained a cloam oven. The outshut contains an unheated dairy with a slate floor. The separate dairy has a slate floor, slate shelves, three drains in the front wall, and a pump.

The roof over the main range has three surviving trusses at the lower end, formerly with trenched purlins and halved principals. The remaining trusses date from the late 17th to early 18th century, are not chamfered, and have halved principal rafters with cambered collars pegged to the faces of the principals; one is numbered with the Roman numeral III.