Godfreys Farmhouse

Godfreys Farmhouse is a house of probably late medieval origin with 17th-century remodelling and extension. It was divided into three cottages at one time. The building is constructed of colourwashed stone and cob with a slate roof, gabled at the left end and hipped at the right end, with end stacks and an end stack to the wing.

The plan is L-shaped, consisting of a single-depth east-facing main range three rooms wide, with a rear right wing at right angles. The main range has a partial two-storey rear outshut with a catslide roof. The main range almost certainly originated as a three-room and through-passage plan, with the lower end to the right (north), possibly with a late medieval open hall core. Without access to the apex of the main range roof at the time of survey in 1988, the open hall remains unconfirmed. If it existed, the inner room was storeyed with no evidence of smoke-blackening on the foot of the inner room truss. The lower side partition of the through passage no longer exists and the hall stack has disappeared, presumably a front or rear lateral stack. The rear wing has been subdivided but was probably a large 17th-century kitchen wing. The present entrance is via an internal porch directly into the middle room, with a stair rising from the rear of this room, turning behind a projection which may have been the 17th-century hall stack. Evidence of two other former stairs exists, one rising from the rear of the inner room.

Externally, the building is two storeys with an approximately symmetrical four-window front displaying regular fenestration. A central internal porch features an outer doorway with a segmental arch. The position of the former through-passage entrance is to the right of the present porch, now converted to a window. Windows are two- and three-light casements of 20th-century timber with glazing bars.

The interior is rich in 17th-century carpentry and joinery. The hall in the centre has plank and muntin screens to both sides and moulded crossbeams with stops, one of the crossbeams having its front end concealed by the internal porch. The inner room to the left has a chamfered stopped crossbeam and a rebuilt fireplace incorporating a 17th-century moulded timber lintel. The lower end room on the right has a boxed-in beam or girder and a small, probably 19th or 20th-century fireplace. This room incorporates the former through passage, which retains a fine timber doorframe on the rear wall with a Tudor arched lintel and chamfers and stops on the rear side. The rear wing has a good set of 17th-century chamfered crossbeams with bar stops, interrupted by partitions that have divided the wing into smaller rooms. The kitchen fireplace survives with a massive timber lintel. On the first floor, three ovolo-moulded stopped 17th-century doorframes survive: one at the top of the existing stair, another at the top of the former inner room stair, and a third, possibly resited, in the rear wing.

The roof displays jointed cruck construction to the main range, with the crucks side-pegged and the ceilings just below collar level. The feet of the hall cruck are plastered over, while the feet of the inner room cruck have been exposed and stained but were not smoke-blackened. This is an evolved house with an interior rich in carpentry, possibly of late medieval open hall origins.