The Old Firs

The Old Firs is a detached house, dating from the late 15th century, with significant alterations in the late 17th century and later additions from the 19th and 20th centuries. It is built on a dressed limestone plinth with short buttresses, and has square-panelled timber framing. The roof is of stone slate, with an axial stone stack, while the 19th and 20th-century additions are of brick. A 20th-century altered wing is set at a right angle to the original 4-bay cross wing. The west-facing front has a flat roof and contains 20th-century doors and casement windows, and may occupy the site of a former hall range.

The cross wing to the right features a large 2-light casement on the ground floor, a fixed window, and single- and 2-light casements to the first floor. The gable facing the street has a 2-light ground floor casement and an early 20th-century leaded oriel on a jettied first floor, with restored barge boards matching those on number 54 High Street. The return side of the cross wing has 2-light casements to both ground and first floors. The right half of this return has been rebuilt in dressed limestone, incorporating a datestone inscribed “KD/1699”. French windows are located on the ground floor, accompanied by single- and 2-light casements to the first floor. The rear gable end of the cross wing includes casements, while the rear of the 20th-century altered range also contains casements.

A single-storey rubble stone service wing, likely dating from the 17th century and altered in the early 20th century, is located to the rear right. It incorporates a planked door, casements, and a gabled dormer, and was originally timber-framed.

Inside the cross wing, the front parlour has moulded crossbeams with a foliage-carved central boss, an open fireplace with a chamfered stone lintel on plain stone jambs, and a winding staircase against an axial stack with a wainscot door below. Wainscot doors are present on the ground floor. The rear parlour features a chamfered beam with ogee stops, reworked in the 17th century. The solar, above the front parlour, contains a fine deep-arch braced cambered collar truss roof with moulded soffits and chamfered purlins with two tiers of curved windbraces. The upper section is concealed by a ceiling. A stone Tudor-arched chamfered fireplace is likely a later insertion. A rear chamber has a ceiling and a loft with a 2-bay collar truss roof, utilising some reused timbers with smoke-blackening.

The solar wing represents the remaining structure of a former hall house. The 1699 rebuilt east end and the rebuilt hall suggest some fire damage may have occurred. A significant fire is known to have affected Steeple Ashton in 1500.