Tuckingmill Farmhouse

Tuckingmill Farmhouse

This farmhouse, originally probably a miller's house, dates from the 17th century and was remodelled and mostly rebuilt in the early 18th century. The building is constructed of painted rubble with dressed granite quoins and lintels. The roof is covered with asbestos slate, though it was thatched until around 1937, and sweeps lower at part of the rear. There are two dressed granite chimneys: one over the gable end on the right and another towards the left, with a later brick chimney over the left-hand gable end. A 17th-century dressed granite kneeler stone, resited in the 18th century, survives at the rear of the right-hand gable.

The plan comprises three rooms. The middle and right-hand rooms were rebuilt deeper in the 18th century to project slightly at the rear. A cross passage runs between these rooms, and there was probably an axial passage at the rear of the left-hand room leading to a straight flight stair along the back wall. An integral shallow 18th-century rear outshut overlaps the left-hand room slightly, so that the back door leads to a passage behind the chimney breast cross wall, providing access to a doorway cut in the 18th century in the rear wall of the left-hand room and to the rebuilt 18th-century part. The left-hand room is all that remains of the 17th-century house, built into the bank on the left and was possibly the original inner room of a three-room plan house. Some of the beams are heavier and earlier; others are 18th-century with ovolo moulding without stops, as in the right-hand room. A straight joint in the front wall with quoins belonging to the 18th-century build might suggest the left-hand room is an addition, but careful examination shows it is clearly older. Each room contains a large fireplace breast. The middle room was probably the 18th-century kitchen (probably on the site of the 18th-century hall) and the right-hand room was the 18th-century parlour.

The building is two storeys high. The overall front, facing roughly south, has five windows. The two-window front surviving from the 17th-century house is on the left, and the nearly symmetrical three-window front of the 18th-century front is on the right. The 18th-century front has a wide central doorway with an 18th-century nine-panel door. The window to the right of the doorway is wider than the others and was deepened, probably around 1937 when the eaves were heightened slightly. This window is a large four-pane horned sash, and the three smaller four-pane horned sashes to the first floor openings are probably of this date. The window left of the doorway is a late 18th or early 19th-century twelve-pane horizontal-sliding sash. The 17th-century front on the left has irregularly disposed openings: a late 18th or early 19th-century twelve-pane horizontal-sliding sash and, towards the right, a small narrow window opening to light a small box room or closet (a similar window to the right of the straight joint between the two builds is blocked, but the closet survives in front of the chimney breast). At the rear is a late 18th or early 19th-century twelve-pane horizontal-sliding sash to light the former passage; the stair window is a four-pane sash of around 1937.

Interior: Floors, doors, roofs and partitions are mostly 18th-century. There is one 18th-century two-panel door to the parlour. Pine muntin and plank partitions survive, some with ovolo-moulded beams. The roof structure has pegged lapped collars and pegged halved apices. Tuckingmill Farmhouse is an interesting example of an 18th-century house incorporating part of the older house, with its plan modified to suit this compromise.