Pulmans Farmhouse

Pulmans Farmhouse

Farmhouse of early to mid 16th-century origin, with significant later 16th-century and 17th-century improvements and thorough renovation around 1980. The building is constructed of local stone and flint rubble with stone rubble chimney stacks topped with plastered brick, and has an interlocking tile roof, formerly thatched.

The house follows a three-room plan facing south-east, built down the hillslope. The original structure was a three-room-and-through-passage plan house; what remains is the former inner room, parlour, hall and passage. The present kitchen occupies the former passage, and the service end room has been demolished. The former passage front and back doorways are now blocked, with the current doorway located at the left (south-west) end.

Originally, the hall at least was open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. A hall fireplace was inserted in the mid to late 16th century, and at the same time a chamber was built over the passage, jettying into the lower end of the hall flush with the front of the chimney stack. The hall was floored over in the late 16th to early 17th century. The inner room was rebuilt and probably enlarged in the early or mid 17th century as a parlour, after which the hall was likely downgraded to a kitchen. The right (north-east) end has a gable-end stack, the centre room has an axial stack, and the small left end room backs onto it.

The building is two storeys high with a gable end to the right and hipped roof to the left. The exterior features a regular two-window front with circa 1980 mullioned windows, and an oven housing projects towards the left end. The doorway on the left end is positioned towards the rear, with the door and verandah dating from circa 1980.

Internally, between the former passage (now kitchen) and hall is a short section of an original oak plank-and-muntin screen containing one jamb of a shoulder-headed or arch-headed doorframe, probably part of an original low partition screen. The large hall fireplace has Beerstone ashlar jambs with panelled cheeks, an oak lintel and chamfered surround. The inserted oven was relined in the 19th century. At the upper end of the hall is a probably late 16th to early 17th-century oak plank-and-muntin screen with chamfered muntins and step stops high enough to accommodate a bench below. The hall crossbeam is chamfered with pyramid stops. A winder stair rises against the back wall behind the hall stack. The inner room, dating from the early to mid 17th century, has a chamfered and scroll-stopped crossbeam and a plastered stone fireplace with a plain oak lintel. On the first floor at the head of the winder stair is a tiny oak doorframe with pointed arch head into the chamber over the hall, which appears to be a ladder access doorway from the open hall to the passage chamber. At the other end of the hall chamber is a late 16th to early 17th-century oak doorframe with cambered head and chamfered surround with step stops. The hall roof is carried on a side-pegged jointed cruck, which the owner reports is smoke-blackened, though the roofspace is inaccessible.