Woodhead Farmhouse Including Cider House Adjoining To East

SY 29 SW BRANSCOMBE

6/16 Woodhead Farmhouse including - Cider House adjoining to east - II Farmhouse. Probably C16 and C17, refurbished and partly rebuilt in the late C19. The older part is exposed local stone and flint rubble, the C19 part is stone rubble with brick dressing and plastered on the front; stone rubble stacks, one with a Beerstone ashlar chimneyshaft, and both are topped with C20 brick; thatch roof to the old part, slate to the C19 wing and corrugated iron to the outshots. Plan and development: originally this was a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south. The inner room at the right (east) end has a gable-end stack. The hall has a projecting front lateral stack. In the late C19 the passage and service end were rebuilt or incorporated into a 2-room plan crosswing which projects forward from the left (west) end and includes the present main stair. Since most of the carpentry detail is hidden by late C19 plaster and the roofspace is inaccessible it is not possible to determine the early structural history of the house. Nevertheless it seems likely that it is some form of C16 open hall house. It is now 2 storeys with secondary outshots across the back. Exterior: irregular 2:2-window front of circa 1980 aluminium-framed casements without glazing bars. However the hall window (right of the stack) has a late C16- early C17 Beerstone ashlar frame, ovolo-moulded and missing its mullion, and has a hoodmould. The front doorway is now on the inside of the crosswing. The main block roof is gable-ended to right and hipped to left. The crosswing roof is half-hipped. Interior is largely the result of the late C19 modernisation. The only carpentry exposed is the plain oak lintel of the hall fireplace. The roof trusses are boxed into the first floor partitions and the roofspace is inaccessible. Nevertheless C16 or C17 carpentry and other detail probably survives behind later plaster. A cider house is built forward from the main block joining it on the left (east) front corner. The west end includes a doorway and shuttered loft window. On the east end a flight of exterior stairs lead up to the apple loft. The roof is hipped each end. It is probably a C19 building and the interior contains plain carpentry detail.

Listing NGR: SY2046090168