Raftra Farmhouse, Including Front And Rear Courtyard Walls And Adjoining Coach House, Earth Closet And Stables

Raftra Farmhouse, together with its front and rear courtyard walls, coach house, earth closet, and stables, dates to around the mid-18th century, with extensions added in the 19th century. The front elevation is granite ashlar, while the remainder of the building is constructed from coursed dressed granite, incorporating some reused 17th-century fragments with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops. The front section has an asbestos slate roof, and the rear has a grouted scantle slate roof. Brick chimneys are positioned on the gable ends.

The building follows an overall U-shaped plan, with a further stable situated in the rear-left corner of the rear courtyard. The original double-depth plan house at the front has a parlour on the left, a slightly larger kitchen on the right, and an entrance hall between connecting to a stair hall flanked by shallow rear service rooms. In the early 19th century, a one-room-plan kitchen wing was added at right angles to the right-hand side, alongside a deeper-plan stable block, a heated grooms' loft over the stables accessible by external stone steps, a heated coach house and an adjoining earth closet to the left-hand side. The plan of the building has remained unchanged since.

The two-storey south-west front has a near-symmetrical three-window appearance, with a doorway centrally positioned between the windows. Original openings are present, featuring a late 19th or early 20th century panelled door and four-pane horned sash windows. A mid-20th century glazed porch has been added. The rear elevations, apart from a later doorway, remain unaltered, offering views into the courtyard. A 19th-century stair window has a traceried head. The coach house has a tall, wide doorway, which may be either a later alteration or indicative of an extension to the stable block; another entrance to the stable front is present.

Interior features include a dog-leg staircase with column-turned balusters over a closed string. Two-panel doors serve the first-floor rooms, and the ground floor rooms retain some high-quality early 19th century features, including roundels within the corner blocks of the architraves of the doorways. The front garden is a shallow rectangular space, while the deep rear courtyard is enclosed by dressed granite and rubble walls, except for the rear wall which is constructed from vertical granite monoliths.