Lambrook Farmhouse

Lambrook Farmhouse is an early to mid-16th-century farmhouse with major late 16th and 17th-century improvements, situated at Farway. It was renovated around 1975, when a barn adjoining the south-west end was converted to domestic use. The building is constructed from exposed local stone and flint rubble, with some described as facing up cob. The chimneys are stone rubble stacks topped with stone rubble and brick, and the roof is thatched.

The main house derives from a three-room-and-through-passage plan house built on basically level ground facing south-east. At the north-east end is a service kitchen with a gable-end stack and the remains of a curing chamber alongside. On the other side of the passage is the hall with its stack backing onto the passage and a newel stair turret projecting to the rear. There was originally a small unheated inner room at the upper end of the hall, but the partition between it and the hall has been removed. A two-storey well house stands behind the passage, and a service outshot extends to the rear of the kitchen. At the south-west end, a former barn was converted to a two-room cottage with a gable-end stack around 1975. Both the main house and cottage are two storeys.

The original house was an open hall house with the inner room floored over at the beginning, heated by an open hearth fire. The hall fireplace was inserted in the mid to late 16th century, and the hall was floored over with a newel stair added in the late 16th to early 17th century. The service end was rebuilt as a kitchen at the same time or slightly later. The well house is probably 17th century, possibly originally a two-storey porch, but was largely rebuilt in the 19th century. The outshot appears contemporary with the kitchen rebuild but was thoroughly modernised around 1976. The date the barn was added is unknown, though probably 19th century.

The exterior has an irregular front of six windows, mostly 20th-century casements containing rectangular panes of leaded glass, except for the two first-floor right windows. The left window could be as early as the 18th century and contains some old green-tinted panes, while the right one has flat-faced mullions with internal chamfers, probably late 17th to early 18th century. All first-floor windows rise a short distance into the eaves. The passage front doorway is right of centre, with a 20th-century rubble-walled, thatch-roofed porch containing a 20th-century Tudor arch doorway. The cottage has a 20th-century doorway with hood at the left end. The main roof is gable-ended.

The interior features an oak plank-and-muntin screen lining the right side of the passage, retaining the remains of a shoulder-headed arch doorway in early to mid-16th-century style, possibly an original low partition screen. The hall fireplace is constructed of Beerstone ashlar with an oak lintel, a chamfered surround with pyramid stops and panelled cheeks. The crossbeam has deep chamfers with step stops, and the hall/inner room partition is marked by a 20th-century beam. There is an oak Tudor arch doorway to the newel stair and another similar at the back of the passage. The former kitchen has a chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam. Its fireplace has been somewhat altered but retains its original chamfered oak lintel. The oven is blocked, and a cupboard alongside contains the remains of a curing chamber. Above this is a late 17th to early 18th-century fireplace with a curving brick pentan (back) and a chamfered and step-stopped oak lintel.

The original roof survives over the hall and former inner room. It spans two bays and is carried on a side-pegged jointed cruck truss. Only the hall section is smoke-blackened from the original open fire; the partition between the two rooms is missing in the roofspace. The remainder of the roof is later, probably late 17th to early 18th century rather than late 16th to early 17th century, and is built at a higher level than the original. It spans three bays and is carried on A-frame trusses, one of which is made up from pieces of a smoke-blackened jointed cruck.

The earliest documentary reference to Lambrook dates to 1574.