Great Seaside Farmhouse

Great Seaside Farmhouse is a farmhouse of early to mid-16th century date, with major improvements made in the later 16th and 17th centuries, refurbished in the late 18th century and renovated around 1960. It is built of local stone rubble including some dressed Beerstone blocks, with stone rubble stacks topped with 20th-century brick, and has a thatch roof.

The house is L-shaped in plan, built down a gentle hillslope and facing north-west. The main block contains a 4-room-and-through-passage plan. At the uphill (north-eastern) end is an unheated inner room, now used as the kitchen. Next to it is the former hall with a large projecting front lateral stack. The rear doorway of the passage is blocked. To the right is the original kitchen with a projecting rear lateral stack, and between it and an unheated end room (probably a dairy) is a service passage which includes the service stair, with its front doorway now blocked. Behind the inner room, a 2-room plan parlour block projects at right angles. The smaller first room is unheated and contains the 20th-century main stair. The second room has a gable-end stack. The house is two storeys high.

The building appears to have begun as a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house, with some reused smoke-blackened timbers suggesting that the hall was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The hall stack was probably added in the mid-16th century, the hall was floored over in the mid or late 16th century, and the parlour wing was built around the same time. The kitchen was refurbished in the early to mid-17th century. The dairy and service passage may date to the 17th century but could be 18th century. The house was extensively refurbished in the late 18th century, when the main block roof was replaced.

The exterior has an irregular 6-window front. All windows, including those around the rest of the house, are circa 1960 mullioned windows made of cast concrete, containing iron-framed casements with glazing bars. The passage front doorway has a 20th-century plain frame and contemporary plank door. The main roof is hipped at both ends and steps down over the lower side of the passage.

The interior features the remains of an oak plank-and-muntin screen on the lower side of the main passage, which may be an original feature but has been extensively altered. It appears to have contained 2 doorways, one of which had an arched or shouldered head. The kitchen has a large 17th-century fireplace with an oak lintel chamfered with scroll stops. The crossbeams in the kitchen and dairy are plain and probably part of the late 18th-century refurbishment. The hall fireplace lintel was probably replaced at the same time, although it retains its original, somewhat battered Beerstone ashlar moulded jambs. The ceiling beams here have deep chamfers and one elongated step stop. The inner room contains a remarkable 16th-century oak window which has been reset inside the new window; a large mullion and transom window with 2 upper crank-headed lights with moulded surrounds above 4 lower lights with chamfered mullions. The outer frame is moulded with a band of modillion-like blocks. The lower lights were probably originally taller and may once have been in the open hall.

Most of the carpentry detail in the parlour wing was plastered over in the late 18th century. The parlour itself is lined with early 18th-century fielded panels above dado level and has a box cornice. However, the contemporary chimneypiece has been removed to reveal part of an ovolo-moulded half beam and a large Beerstone ashlar fireplace with Tudor arch lintel and moulded surround. A smaller version is exposed in the chamber above. The occupant reports a close-studded oak full height crosswall between the 2 parlour wing rooms. The parlour roof truss is plastered over but its shape suggests a jointed cruck roof truss. The main block roof was completely renewed in the late 18th century.

Great Seaside is an attractive farmhouse close to the beach.