South Wood Farmhouse

South Wood Farmhouse is a farmhouse of late 15th to early 16th century origin with major later improvements in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is constructed of local stone and flint rubble with Beerstone ashlar detail, stone rubble stacks and chimney shafts (some later topped with 20th-century brick), and has a thatch roof.

The house is arranged as a main block facing east with a three-room-and-through-passage plan. At the south end is the former kitchen with a large gable-end stack, behind which sits a newel stair and a small unheated room (probably a pantry) in a short rear projection. The passage between the kitchen and hall is now blocked to the rear. The hall contains an axial stack backing onto the passage and includes a curing chamber alongside. At the north end is an inner room parlour with a projecting gable-end stack. An unheated single-room service wing projects at right angles to the rear of the parlour, overlapping the upper end of the hall and featuring a large newel stair from the upper end of the hall. A two-storey porch stands at the front of the passage. The remains of a rear porch have been incorporated into 20th-century outshots across the back of the main block.

The surviving original roof indicates that the inner room end was originally two storeys while the rest was open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. Inner room and hall chimney stacks were probably added in the late 16th century. The hall was floored over in the early 17th century. The service end was likely already floored but was rebuilt in its present form with the rear staircase and unheated room in the mid-17th century, probably around 1655 (the date appearing on the front porch). The rear service block was added at the same time. This 1655 refurbishment appears to have reoriented the house; it formerly faced towards the lane with an early 17th-century porch on that side, but since 1655 the garden-facing east side has been the main front.

The house is two storeys with a regular but not symmetrical 1:1:2 window front, mostly of mid-17th century Beerstone ashlar windows with ovolo-moulded mullions. The two 17th-century ground floor windows have hoodmoulds. The first floor window at the right end is a 20th-century casement with rectangular leaded panes; the ground floor window below has been converted to a 20th-century French window behind a contemporary conservatory. The porch is gabled with shaped kneelers, coping and apex finials. Its outer arch is a Tudor arch with moulded surround and chamfer-scroll stops, with a projecting dripcourse directly above. Above the first floor window is the 1655 date plaque. The porch has benches each side, and the passage front doorway contains a late 19th-century part-glazed four-panel door apparently in a smaller opening than the original. The main roof is gable-ended; the stair wing has a half-hipped roof and the service block is gable-ended. The rear of the main block and rear wings include more 17th-century windows, mostly Beerstone with ovolo-moulded mullions, though there is an oak three-light window over the passage rear doorway with chamfered mullions containing rectangular leaded panes. Behind the rear outshot are the roofless remains of the early 17th-century porch to the passage rear doorway, with an oak frame featuring a cambered head and ovolo-moulded surround.

The interior is of considerable quality. The 17th-century kitchen on the lower side of the passage has chamfered and step-stopped axial beams and a massive Beerstone ashlar fireplace with a chamfered oak lintel; the oven has been relined with 19th-century brick. The newel stair rises round a post and includes at first floor level a grille of 17th-century oak balusters. The hall/dining room on the other side of the passage has a large Beerstone ashlar fireplace with a chamfered and slightly arched oak lintel. A seat on the left cheek includes a doorway through to the curing chamber, with a blocked ash raking hole below the seat—an unusual feature in such a well-appointed room. The ceiling has a flat ground with an early 17th-century single rib pattern of ornamental plasterwork enriched with a series of moulded fleur-de-lys motifs with rosettes. The parlour shows no ceiling beam. Its fireplace is Beerstone ashlar with oak lintel and chamfered surround. The service block has plain square-section crossbeams with upended plank joists, originally providing a flat ceiling like those in the hall and parlour. A broad newel stair connects the hall to the first floor. On the first floor, a 17th-century doorframe between kitchen and passage features chamfered step stops and contains an ancient plank door hung on strap hinges with fleur-de-lys finials. Other old plank doors survive on the first floor. A blocked Tudor arch doorway appears between the passage chamber and porch. The kitchen and parlour chambers have small Beerstone ashlar fireplaces with oak lintels.

The original roof survives over the hall and parlour, spanning three bays. The partition between the hall and parlour chambers is a closed truss; over the hall is an open truss comprising a face-pegged jointed cruck with chamfered arch braces, cambered collar, and at the apex a small triangular yoke and diagonal ridge (Alcock's apex type L1). The roof contains single sets of curving windbraces. The hall roof, including common rafters, the underside of the original thatch, and the hall face of the closed truss, is heavily smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. The 17th-century truss over the kitchen is clean; the bases of the principals are boxed into a partition, as is the truss in the service wing.

South Wood Farmhouse is a particularly attractive and well-preserved farmhouse with significant historical associations. The Wood estate was owned by Jeffrey de Wrothiall in the time of Henry III. Following 15 generations of ownership, it was sold to Mr. W. Fry, whose great-granddaughter married Mr. Andrews, who was the owner in 1773.