Calcutt Farmhouse

Calcutt Farmhouse is a stone farmhouse dating from the late 18th and/or early 19th century, extended in the mid-19th century. It stands in Cricklade, North Wiltshire.

The building is constructed in coursed limestone rubble with ashlar quoins and dressings to the front and brick dressings to the rear wing. The front range has a gabled-ended stone slate roof, while the rear wing has a reconstructed stone slate roof. The front range features a stone stack gable and a stone axial ridge stack with base and cap moulds to the shafts. The former gable end of the 19th-century rear wing has a brick stack.

The farmhouse is L-shaped in plan. Originally it had a two-room plan with a parlour on the left and a kitchen on the right, separated by a central entrance and stairhall. In the mid-19th century, another room was added to the right and a service wing was built behind it, containing a new kitchen and pantry or dairy, creating the current three-room plan.

The two-storey house with attic has a three-bay symmetrical front, extended in the 19th century to the right by one additional bay with matching details. A central entrance doorway is set beneath a wide flat stone canopy carried on a pair of shaped stone brackets. The doorway contains a pair of 19th-century panelled double doors, screened by late 20th-century glazed sliding doors, with dressed stone jambs. Each floor of the original section has three four-by-four pane sash windows in ashlar surrounds with projecting sills. The west gable end has a similar sash at first-floor level. Rear windows of the main range have chamfered timber lintels: two early 19th-century sashes with bars to the ground floor and 20th-century casements to the central stairwell window and upper floor. To the left of centre is a blocked doorway with a timber lintel. The 19th-century rear wing of three bays has segmental brick arched casements to the first floor, set above a verandah supported on timber posts.

Internally, the parlour contains a chamfered axial beam with step stops and a china niche with shaped shelves and panelled doors. The former kitchen at the centre also has a chamfered axial beam with step stops, and a large stone fireplace with a repaired timber bressumer, including the remains of a bread oven. The farmhouse contains some 18th-century joinery including panelled doors and architraves. The chamber above the parlour has a small stone chimneypiece with cupboards with panelled doors to the left and right. The stick balustrade to the stairs has been removed except for those to the upper flight leading to the attic. The roof structure is a tenoned-purlin design, complete with common rafters.

The internal and external fabric and architectural detailing suggest the building dates from the late 18th and/or early 19th century. It is a good example of a late Georgian stone farmhouse, using high-quality materials and craftsmanship expressing local vernacular traditions. Its plan form has remained mostly intact and includes good-quality features that illustrate the historic development of the building.