Anchoring Farmhouse Including Cider House And Stables Adjoining To South

This is a farmhouse with a cider house and stables, dating from the late 15th to early 16th century, with significant alterations made in the 16th and 17th centuries and refurbishment in the late 19th century. The cider house and stable block were built in the mid-19th century. The farmhouse is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with cob and stone rubble stacks topped with 19th-century brick; one stack is disused. The roof is thatched, with slate covering the cider house, stables and a rear outshot.

The original plan is of a 3-room-and-through-passage house facing east-south-east, with an inner room on the north side. The northernmost room has a disused end stack, the hall has a projecting front lateral stack, and the service end room has a cob gable-end kitchen stack. 19th-century outshots extend from the rear. The farmhouse is two stories high and has an irregular 4-window front featuring 20th-century casement windows with glazing bars. The front passage doorway is to the left of centre and has a late 19th-century part-glazed and panelled door. A stone hall stack, seemingly from the 17th century, projects to the right of the doorway, having a chamfered plinth, weathered offsets, and a small fire window. The roof is half-hipped to the right and gable-ended to the left. The cider house is lower and has a single 20th-century window, and is gable-ended. The stables are set at right angles to the rear of the cider house, with 19th-century plank doors and windows.

The interior has largely been modernized in the 19th and 20th centuries, but the original layout is preserved. No original ceiling beams are exposed, and the hall crossbeam is boxed in. A blocked 19th-century chimneypiece obscures the fireplace in the inner room, and the associated stack is disused. The hall fireplace is lined with 19th-century brick, and its lintel is concealed. The kitchen fireplace is blocked, but its size is apparent. A cupboard to the right of the kitchen might be a former walk-in curing chamber. The roof structure is unusual, with two 19th-century trusses supporting the service end, but no trusses over the rest of the house; rather, the ridge and single set of purlins are of large dimensions and are unusually long, supporting the common rafters. This roof structure, along with the underside of the thatch, is heavily smoke-blackened, suggesting a late 15th- or early 16th-century open roof with low partitions and an open hearth fire. The carpentry in the cider house and stables shares similar details, using elm and oak timbers. Crossbeams are neatly finished with narrow soffit chamfers and run-out stops. The roof features A-frame trusses with spiked lap-jointed collars sitting on interrupted tie beams.