Lower Beeny Farmhouse

Lower Beeny Farmhouse is a farmhouse, now a private house, probably dating from the late 16th or early 17th century. It is constructed of rendered and painted stone rubble with partial slate hanging, beneath a rag slate roof with gable ends.

The building's layout reflects a complex construction and alteration history. The main range facing east, probably the only surviving part of the original house, appears to have had a two-room and through-passage plan. The higher end on the right (north) dates to the late 16th or early 17th century and contains a two-bay hall heated by a gable end stack. In the early 17th century, a parlour wing was added to the front of and overlapping the higher end of the hall, with a doorway allowing access between the two. This unusual angled arrangement was apparently necessitated by steeply rising ground beyond the hall's higher end, which would have required bedrock excavation. Building the wing lower on the hall's front would have required a new hall window at the back, but the building's rear is heavily exposed to prevailing westerly gales.

The through passage and lower left (south) end were partly rebuilt in the 18th or 19th century, reduced to single-storey height and remodelled, with the interior passage becoming the kitchen. The original function of this lower end remains unclear—it may have been a service range, outbuilding, or byre. A thin wall on the higher right side of the passage continues up to form the lower gable end wall and incorporates a 17th-century truss originally open, indicating the hall roof continued at that level over the lower end. The thick stone wall on the lower side of the passage contains a chimney flue and a probably blocked entrance leading from the passage into the left-hand service end. The passage, now the kitchen, may have been widened and is heated by a fireplace with a probably mid-17th-century lintel that may have been reused, its ogee stops not lining up with the fireplace jambs. Single-storey lean-to outshots were added to the front of the left end, to the lower left gable end, to the rear of the hall and passage, and to the higher right gable end, dating to circa late 18th and 19th centuries.

The two-storey circa late 16th-century range on the right has a front projecting wing with 20th-century fenestration on the ground floor and a 19th-century three-light casement on the first floor. The gable end of the right wing contains a three-light cavetto-moulded granite mullion window on the ground floor and a similar two-light window above. A single-storey 20th-century glazed conservatory or porch spans the front and fills the angle with the wing to the right. The lower range to the left has a glazed 20th-century door to the through passage.

Internally, the hall has two heavy ceiling beams with chamfer and cyma stops, and 20th-century fireplaces in both the hall and parlour. A cloam oven is located on the left side. The two-bay roof structure above the hall has principals halved, lap-jointed and pegged at apices, and collars halved, lap-jointed and pegged onto the face of the principals. The lower truss was originally open but has been incorporated as a closed truss into the left gable end wall. The roof structure above the parlour has been sealed and is inaccessible. The roof structure above the lower service range on the left comprises several reused trusses, heavily coated with dark stain, some with morticed apices but with renewed collars.

The building is an area venerated in later love poems by Thomas Hardy.