Upper Horsehall Hill Farm

UPPER HORSEHALL HILL FARM, LITTLE BEDWYN

A vernacular house of late-17th and early-18th-century origin, comprehensively reworked in the mid- to late-18th century, with 19th and 20th-century alterations.

The building is a two-storey house, three bays wide, with an attic storey and a rectangular two-room plan organised around a central staircase. The main entrance is now positioned to the north, though it may formerly have been on the south elevation, where a full-height porch now stands, probably added later.

The south elevation features decorative 19th-century tile hanging, though some tiles were reportedly re-hung in the 20th century. The rear elevation and gable ends are constructed in English bond brick, probably dating from the mid-18th century. The building has a pitched clay tile roof with full-height external brick chimney stacks. A small section of timber framing survives at the north-west corner of a former single-storey extension attached to the west gable end.

On the south elevation are three-light casement windows of late-20th-century date to both floors. The central projecting porch contains a central door (formerly a window) with a two-light casement window above. The right-hand bay has a 19th-century brick lean-to, extended further southwards in the late 20th century, abutting both the porch and the chimney stack on the east gable end. Two full dormers were inserted into the attic in the late 1980s. The north elevation displays a full-length plat band with 20th-century casement windows to both floors and a small central entrance porch of late-20th-century date, above which sits a Britannia Firemark. Three flat brick lintels surviving above the windows and porch indicate the elevation formerly had sash windows. Both gable ends are blind except for small single casement windows at attic level.

The interior contains a narrow dogleg stair with square newel posts, turned vase balusters and ball finials, dating to around 1670. The roof, probably of late-17th or early-18th-century origin, is three bays wide with two trusses of principal rafters with collars, single purlins and paired common rafters, but no ridge piece. Vestigial evidence of straight wind braces survives, with two complete examples in the western half of the roof. Two further straight wind braces are indicated by cut marks in the purlin above the porch bay, showing that this section was added after the main roof was constructed.

Documentary evidence confirms the existence of a house at Upper Horsehall Hill since at least 1530, with an inventory of 1592 referring to a house with a kitchen. The Wiltshire Buildings Record suggests the current roof structure may date from this early period, when the building was probably a timber-framed, thatched house. Archival documents record that during the second half of the 17th century the house was tenanted by a gentleman named John Thistlethwaite.

The property is located at the end of the London Ride, a very long, straight ride originating from the early-18th century (now disused but traceable in the landscape) that extends north-easterly from Tottenham House. Its close proximity to Savernake Forest indicates it would have been situated within the forest, which formerly covered a much larger area than today.

The earliest map evidence for a building at Upper Horsehall Hill appears on Atkinson's map of the Manor of Chisbury dated 1719. The site appears on Andrew and Dury's Map of Wiltshire of 1773, marked as Horsell Hill, and on Greenwood's Map of Wiltshire of 1820 as Horse Hill Farm. Ordnance Survey maps of 1880, 1900 and 1924 show the footprint of the current house remained unchanged. The 1880 map labels the building as Wellhouse, and the 1900 OS map indicates there was a well in the grounds to the west. The cottage at nearby Lower Upper Horsehall Hill also appears as Wellhouse on historic OS maps, suggesting this may refer to the function of a building rather than its formal name.

An aerial photograph of c.1968 shows that Upper Horsehall Hill Farmhouse formerly had a single-storey building or wing attached to its west, probably the structure shown on historic OS maps. This was demolished in the late 1970s. In the late 1980s the property was sold by the Crown Estate, after which various outbuildings were removed and the house extensively refurbished.