Pale Farmhouse

SS 90 SW REWE UPEXE

1/182 Pale Farmhouse - 11.11.52 - II

Farmhouse. Late C16 or early C17 with later alterations. Cob, stone plinth, rendered, under gabled-end slate roof. Main range of 4 rooms and through passage (parlour with associated front wing, and Hall to left of passage, with 2 lower end rooms and a large lower-end front wing). Left-hand external end stack, truncated left-hand lateral stack to left-hand wing, axial stack serving Hall fireplace backing on to passage, and end (front) stack to lower-end wing. 2 storeys. Front: all stacks with brick shafts; deeply-recessed entrance to right of stair turret, and left of lower-end wing, with panelled door with LH hinges, opposing rear entrance. All windows are C20 metal-framed casements except for one hornless, sash window at lst floor level to left of entrance, 8 panes per sash. Rear: Scattered fenestration, all C20 metal-framed casements. Interior: a later front corridor has been inserted into main range; otherwise all partitions (except for the stone stack back to through passage) are C16 or early C17 plank and muntin screens. There are 3 in all; that which divides the 2 lower- end rooms retains indistinct painting on the left-hand side, mostly of floral designs, but also containing a shield in one panel, and a ladder (in a house?) in another. The outlines are now black, but were formerly red. All muntins and bressumers chamfered. Screen between Hall and Parlour has, to parlour side, ovolo mouldings, and the door has elaborate stops (a combination of a scroll stop, the muntin bases associated with early C16 church screens and a little ogee motif) and cyma-recta mouldings. Hall side of screen with scroll stops about 18" above ground, indicating the existence of a former dais. Surround to door between passage and hall with chamfers, and very wide. All rooms contain some chamfered beams and original joists. Parlour fireplace with cyma-recta moulding to stone jambs. Hall fireplace concealed, although large lintel visible. Formerly there was a pair of fireplaces in the rooms above Hall and passage, both served by the same stack; the former survives with chamfered stone jambs, the latter is concealed but supported by corbelling visible in through-passage. Front (end) fireplace to lower-end wing concealed, but to either side are huge, heavily blackened smoking chambers, open to the roof. A left-hand side oven (formerly projecting externally) has been dismantled. Roof: Main range of 7 bays, with 4 C16 or early C17 principals surviving, purlins trenched, morticed and side-pegged at apex; 2 of these (over lower end) are upper crucks. All timbers clean. Left-hand wing with one slender crossed, morticed and pegged principal, and with remains of a blocked, formerly leaded, 2-light window in gable wall. Lower -end wing with 2 principals, similar to that in the other wing.

Listing NGR: SS9423702471