The Longhouse

The Longhouse

Farmhouse. Built in the early 17th century with some early 18th-century modernisation and renovated around 1980. The walls are constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble chimney stacks topped with 19th and 20th-century brick. The roof is thatch, with tile covering to the outshot.

The house follows a three-room-and-through-passage plan facing west and is built down the hillslope. At the uphill south end is a large room (the hall or parlour) with an axial stack backing onto the passage, which also serves the principal chamber above. On the other side of the passage are a kitchen and its axial stack, which backs onto the dairy or buttery at the left end room. A two-storey porch to the rear of the passage was probably added during the early 18th-century refurbishment. At about the same time, a hay loft was inserted over the dairy end chamber. In the 20th century, an 18th or 19th-century outshot to the rear of the hall/parlour was converted to a kitchen. The porch suggests the east side was originally the front, though the west must have become the main front by the time the rear outshot was built. The house is two storeys.

The irregular five-window west front contains windows of various dates and sizes. Two first-floor windows and both end ground-floor windows are original, with oak frames and ovolo-moulded mullions. Another first-floor window is missing its mullion, another is a 19th-century casement, and the rest date from around 1980 in 17th-century style. The passage front doorway is slightly right of centre with a circa 1980 plank door. A secondary doorway to the left enters the former dairy. The roof is half-hipped at each end. The north end has a window to each floor; the ground and first-floor windows are original though missing some mullions, the former having chamfered mullions and the latter ovolo-moulded mullions with internal wooden shutters. A blocked shuttered window opens to the loft. The rear porch has a 20th-century door in its outer arch.

The interior is well-preserved with most structural detail dating to the early 17th century.

The hall/parlour is the finest room. Its three-bay ceiling is carried on crossbeams with chamfer-ovolo mouldings and scroll stops. The fireplace has Beer-stone ashlar jambs, an oak lintel, and an ovolo-moulded surround. A smaller, plainer version stands on the first floor above.

The lower passage side (former kitchen) is lined with an oak plank-and-muntin screen containing a blocked crank-headed doorway. The passage rear door frame is original, an oak frame with cambered head and chamfered surround. The kitchen crossbeams are plain-chamfered, possibly with stops knocked off. The kitchen fireplace is a plainer version of that in the hall/parlour with a chamfered oak lintel. It was reduced in size when a doorway was opened through its right-hand side, and this work also blocked the side oven.

The dairy has two axial chamfered and scroll-stopped crossbeams. The main block roof is carried on a series of clean side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. The truss over the dairy end was originally closed, dividing the chamber into two small rooms; in the early 18th century this was removed and a loft inserted, though the chamfered axial beam remains. Other early 18th-century features include the porch, where no carpentry detail is exposed, and a cupboard in the hall/parlour chamber with a curving back, shaped shelves, and panelled doors on H-hinges. This chamber has been divided into two.

This is an attractive and remarkably well-preserved single-phase early 17th-century farmhouse, forming a group with its close neighbour, Middle Weaver Farmhouse.