Little Town Farmhouse, Garden Wall, Curing House And Butressed Wall.

Little Town Farmhouse, Garden Wall, Curing House and Buttressed Wall

A former farmhouse of late 18th-century date, incorporating parts of an earlier building. A date stone of 1704 is set in the recesses of one of the windows. The building has undergone 19th and 20th-century repairs and alterations. It is arranged over two floors with an attic above.

The main structure is built of red brick laid in Flemish bond on stone footings, with the earlier 17th-century parts mainly constructed in stone. The roof is stone-tiled and hipped. All windows are plain 20th-century timber casements.

The front elevation presents three bays and two storeys. The right-hand bay has four-light casement windows with exposed timber lintels to ground and first floor. The left-hand bay has three-light casements with exposed lintels to ground and first floor. The central bay features a three-light casement window with exposed lintel at first floor, set above a stone-tiled hipped roof porch with decorative wrought iron trellis-work supports. All windows are traditional flush-fitting casements with eight panes and ovolo moulded glazing bars. The east and west elevations are less formal, with a mix of two, three and four-light casements of 20th-century date, all with exposed wooden lintels except at attic level. The west elevation includes a pair of newly installed French doors to the ground floor service wing. The rear north elevation displays the gables of the north-east and north-west ranges, with a gable-end stack to the east range and a quarter hipped roof to the west range, with an informal arrangement of one, two and three-light casements.

The interior retains a range of notable architectural features. The right-hand ground floor room of the front range contains a chamfered cross-beam with hollow stops, recessed and moulded panelling below the window with matching shutters, a corner cupboard with recessed panelled doors, a moulded cornice, and a curious 20th-century fire surround incorporating twin spirally-treated columns. The left-hand ground floor front room has a date stone in the left-hand window reveal with reset Delft tiles set below the window. The entrance hall features a plain later 19th-century closed-string stair with turned newel posts, a swept hand rail and stick balusters. The rear out-shot incorporates a bread oven of brick and stone with a wrought iron door in situ. The left-hand first floor room of the front block has a good mid-18th-century fire surround with a later cast-iron grate. The first floor room of the rear north-east range contains a good plain late 17th or early 18th-century stone chamfered chimney-piece with a slightly cranked head and decorative stops. At second floor of the front block is a plain closed-string attic stair of 18th-century date, set against good oak geometric panelling of late 17th or early 18th-century date, probably reused from the older house.

The plan is essentially a single-pile front range incorporating two rooms on each side of an entrance hall with main stair. An earlier single bay of a through-passage house to the rear north-east incorporates a gable-end stack to the north. An axial stack terminates the earlier bay of the house to the south. A large out-shot extension extends to the rear of this range, and a rear service wing adjoins the early block to the north-west. A brick barrel-vaulted cellar runs beneath the north-west service range to the west.

The garden wall to the south front of the main block is constructed of Flemish bond brick with a bull-nose brick soldier course and a 20th-century wrought iron gate of the same pattern as the porch supports. Approximately eight metres to the west of the house, linked by the garden wall, stands a modest 19th-century smoking or curing house of brick laid in Flemish bond. Approximately eight metres to the south of the house stands a tall buttressed wall constructed of brick laid in English bond with a flat stone coping, formally demarcating the farmyard.

Elements of the roof structure are visible, including hip ridge-boards, rafters and purlins, all hand-worked and of 18th-century date.

Little Town Farmhouse is a well-preserved example of a middle-status multi-phased late 17th and early 18th-century farmhouse. It retains a range of architectural details that clearly define the evolutionary development of the building. Later alterations and repairs have been sensitively carried out, preserving and contributing to its special interest. The house has a distinctive historical association with its landscape context, specifically the cut figure of the horse on the hill behind.