Red Doors Farmhouse Including Front Courtyard Wall Adjoining To North

Red Doors Farmhouse, including the front courtyard wall adjoining to the north, is a listed building of considerable architectural and historical interest.

The house is a farmhouse dating from the early 16th century with major improvements in the later 16th and 17th centuries. It was thoroughly refurbished around 1975. The building is constructed of local stone and flint rubble, including some sections of cob, most of which is plastered. The chimney stacks are stone rubble topped with 20th-century bricks, and the roof is thatched.

The plan is L-shaped. The main block faces north and follows a two-room-and-through-passage plan. The large room to the left (east) of the wide passage is a parlour with an end stack; it once included a small buttery or dairy between the main room and the passage, but the partitions were removed around 1975 to enlarge the parlour. To the right of the passage is the kitchen, which has an axial stack backing onto a staircase positioned between it and the passage. A two-room rear block projects at right angles to the rear of the kitchen and was thoroughly refurbished around 1975.

The building has a long and complex structural history. The original early 16th-century part comprises the passage and kitchen section of the main block, thought to have had a two-room-and-through-passage plan. The present passage was originally an inner room and floored over from the beginning; the rest was the hall, which was open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. In the mid or late 16th century, a large stack was inserted backing onto the original passage (now occupied by the stair), producing an unusually small hall which was floored over in the late 16th or early 17th century. The rear block may partly date from the 16th century, but all its carpentry was replaced around 1975. The main block was enlarged in the early 17th century when the parlour was built with a buttery. At the same time, the rest of the main block was rearranged: the former inner room was converted to the present wide through-passage, the putative former passage fell into disuse and was replaced by the stair, and the former hall was downgraded to serve as the kitchen. The function of the rear block is unclear given its thorough renovation. The rear block includes a lobby behind the kitchen with an external projection on the west side, which could have contained a staircase or alternatively a carriageway from the road to the rear courtyard, separating the main house from the rear block. If the latter were the case, the projection would have been a porch and the rear block a service wing.

The farmhouse is two storeys with an outshot on the left (east) end of the main block. The main block has an irregular three-window front of 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The passage front doorway is a little right of centre and contains a plank door behind a 20th-century gabled porch. The main roof is hipped at both ends, steeply so at the left end. The rear block is slightly lower than the main block and has a 1:1:2 window front (on the outer side) of 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The roof is carried down over the projection and is hipped at the end.

Interior features of note include an original chamfered axial beam in the original inner room (present passage). The full-height crosswall on the kitchen side is also original, featuring large oak framing over the remains of an oak plank-and-muntin screen. The roof over this section is original, comprising two bays with a side-pegged jointed cruck of large scantling with a cranked collar. Hip crucks occupy each end, and both bays contain single sets of curving windbraces. The original crosswall is not a closed truss; it rises between the windbraces of the inner bay. The section over the former inner room (present passage) is clean whilst the rest is smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. The inserted hall or later kitchen fireplace is very large in relation to the size of the room, with Beerstone ashlar jambs, an oak lintel and chamfered surround. The large oven in the back projects under the stairs; both were rebuilt in the 19th century but the arrangement has probably remained the same since the early 17th century. The small hall has half beams at each end, both chamfered with pyramid stops. The rest of the main block is early 17th century, separated by a solid wall (the original end wall) from the earlier sections. The ground floor is now a single room, though disused mortices show that a small buttery and corridor past it once occupied the end nearest the passage, with partitions of oak plank-and-muntin screens. The parlour itself has a chamfered crossbeam and a good Beerstone ashlar fireplace with an oak lintel cut to a low Tudor arch and a chamfered surround. A 20th-century stair adjoins to the right, probably replacing an original. On the first floor, there is said to be a blocked small Tudor arch-headed fireplace. The roof is carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. All carpentry in the rear block was replaced around 1975.

A tall plastered wall of cob on stone rubble footings projects forward from the right end of the front, screening the front courtyard from the lane.

Red Doors Farmhouse is a very attractive farmhouse of considerable interest. The early 16th-century open hall house is built to a high standard yet is remarkably small if it represents a complete house, as the roof suggests. It forms part of a group of attractive buildings that make up the hamlet of Beacon.