Fancy Farmhouse

Fancy Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from the early to mid 17th century, with alterations and additions in the late 19th century and modernization around 1970. It's constructed from local stone rubble, with some late 19th-century brick dressings, stone rubble stacks topped with 20th-century brick, and a slate roof, originally thatched.

The house originally had a four-room and through-passage plan, facing south-southwest. The two rooms at the west end were the main rooms, with a gable-end stack to the principal parlour. The room to the east of the passage has an axial stack, backing onto a small unheated room. A stable (now a workshop) was added to the east end. A straight join in the front wall indicates the unheated room and stable were added in the late 19th century. The unheated room was originally a cellar/buttery. The original layout suggests a larger house existed at the rear, which has since been replaced by rear outshots containing a kitchen and axial stack. The house is two stories throughout.

The front of the house has an irregular six-window facade. The original three-window section has early to mid-17th century Beerstone windows with ovolo-moulded mullions and hoodmoulds to the ground floor. The passage doorway has a late 19th-century part-glazed four-panel door. The right-hand three-window section contains 20th-century casements, many with glazing bars; one window is positioned where a former hayloft loading hatch was located. The stable doorway and another doorway into the former cellar/buttery are 20th-century additions. The roof is gable-ended.

The two original rooms from the early to mid-17th century retain good quality original features. Both rooms have Beerstone ashlar fireplaces with oak lintels, their soffits shaped as low Tudor arches; the left room’s fireplace has a chamfered surround, while the one in the room to the right of the passage has a moulded surround. Both rooms feature chamfered crossbeams, with scroll stops in the left room only. A small original fireplace remains in the chamber over the left room. An original two-light Beerstone window with rectangular panes of ancient leaded glass is now located internally within the rear wall of the original house. The roof structure over the original section retains original A-frame trusses with pegged dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collars, although their apexes have been cut off. The remainder of the house has 19th-century joinery, and the hayloft floor was rebuilt around 1970.