Stoneacre Farmhouse Including Barn Adjoining To The North-West And Front Garden Walls

Stoneacre Farmhouse, including barn adjoining to the north-west and front garden walls, is a listed farmhouse of significant historical importance. Dating from the early to mid 16th century with major 16th and 17th century improvements and minor 18th and 19th century alterations, it demonstrates a long and complex structural history typical of working farm buildings that evolved over generations.

The building is constructed of local stone and flint rubble, plastered at the rear, with stone rubble stacks and plastered stone rubble chimney shafts. The roof is corrugated iron, though it was formerly thatched. It follows an L-plan form with the main block facing west, built across the hillslope with a 4-room-and-through-passage plan. At the north end is a small unheated inner room, probably originally a dairy or buttery. Adjacent to this is the former hall, which has an axial stack backing onto the passage. The passage is now blocked by a 20th century stair, though opposing front and back doorways remain visible. On the other side of the passage is a service end room with an axial stack, backing onto the south end room which serves as a storeroom. A single-room block projects at right angles to the rear of the inner room, featuring a large projecting lateral stack with oven housing on the outer north side.

Much of the early fabric is hidden behind 18th and 19th century plaster, making definitive interpretation difficult. The evidence suggests that the passage and service end section was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The hall and inner room section appears to have been rebuilt around the mid 16th century with a fireplace and chimney to the open hall and the inner room with a chamber over. In the early or mid 17th century, the service end and passage were floored over and the chimney stack inserted. The hall was also floored over at around the same time, and a kitchen block was added to the rear of the inner room dairy/buttery. By the mid 17th century, with the rear block kitchen in place, the former hall had become the dining room with a former service end parlour. The inner room at the north end was extended a short distance either when the rear block was added or later. This extension was narrower with a canted rear corner containing windows on each floor. The south end storage extension dates to the 19th century, though evidence of a lower roofline indicates that some service extension existed here previously. The house is 2 storeys, with the service and storeroom extension open to the roof.

On the front elevation, there are 2 ground floor windows and one first floor window, all late 19th to early 20th century casements with glazing bars. More windows formerly existed on this side, as evidenced by surviving Beerstone jambs. There are 3 front doorways. The central doorway is the main entrance, containing the former passage front doorway with a 19th century plank door behind a gabled porch. To the left is a doorway into the inner room dairy/buttery, and to the right is another into the storeroom; both contain 19th century doors. A butt join is visible between the main house and the storeroom. The roof is hipped to the right and half-hipped to the left. The rear and kitchen block contains 19th and 20th century casements with glazing bars.

The interior largely reflects apparently superficial 19th century modernisations, though the original layout remains and early carpentry, where exposed, is well-preserved. The crossbeam in the inner room dairy/buttery is boxed in, and in both the hall and rear block kitchen, no beams are visible and the fireplaces are blocked. The farmer has reported a large Beerstone ashlar fireplace behind the 20th century grate in the hall. In the service end parlour, the crossbeams are plastered over but apparently have deep chamfers. The fireplace here is also blocked, though its large size is evident and part of its chamfered oak lintel can be seen in a cupboard. The roof of the main block is divided into 2 sections by the hall stack. To the south, over the passage and service end parlour, the roof is original, comprising 2 uneven bays carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. The surviving common rafters are heavily smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. The hall and inner room roof is 4 bays, with the end fourth bay associated with the extension and the rest dating to the mid 16th century. The partition between the hall and inner room is a large framed oak closed truss. The hall has a 2-bay roof carried on a side-pegged jointed cruck with chamfered arch braces.

The small probably 19th century barn, located on the left north side of the front garden, has opposing central doorways onto the threshing floor. In the 20th century, its loading hatches were converted to windows when it became an animal house, and a suspended ceiling was inserted, hiding the roof structure. The barn overlaps the north end of the farmhouse, and the narrow space between the two has been roofed over to create a passage. The front and south side of the garden are enclosed by a probably 19th century stone rubble wall.

Stoneacre Farmhouse is an attractive farmhouse that forms a good group with its traditional farm buildings, including the linhay. When approached down the lane from the north, the local stone buildings and various rooflines appear particularly striking. The owner's researches suggest that this may be the site of a pre-Reformation chantry.