Browns Farmhouse Including Outbuildings Adjoining To East And North

Browns Farmhouse including outbuildings adjoining to east and north

Farmhouse, formerly The Ship Inn, and attached outbuildings. The farmhouse has 17th-century fabric but was rebuilt in the late 18th to early 19th century. The outbuildings are late 19th century, with those to the east dating to circa 1870 according to the owner.

The farmhouse and northern outbuildings are constructed of plastered cob on rubble footings. The eastern outbuildings and northern barn are of exposed local stone rubble. Chimneys are topped with 19th or 20th-century brick. The farmhouse and nearest outbuildings have thatch roofs, whilst the outer outbuildings are roofed with corrugated iron and slate.

The farmhouse is L-shaped with the main block facing south. It follows a 2-room and central through passage plan. The left (western) room has a projecting end stack, and the right (eastern) room has a rear lateral stack. A service room to the rear of the left room contains a disused end kitchen stack. Attached to the right end of the farmhouse is a former stable block with a hayloft over and a lean-to harness room or implement shed on the right end. Behind the farmhouse service room stands a former butcher's shop and slaughter house, with a barn behind to the north.

The farmhouse is two storeys with a symmetrical 3-window front of late 19th to early 20th-century casements with glazing bars and a contemporary central plank door containing a pair of small windows. The roof is hipped at each end and hipped to the rear over the service room, which also has late 19th to early 20th-century casements on its west-facing side.

The rubble former stable block to the right is set back slightly from the main front. It has central double doors flanked by glazed windows, and at first-floor level a central loading hatch and shuttered window to the left. The windows and door to the lean-to shed alongside have segmental arches over. The stable roof is thatched and hipped to the right; the shed roof is slated.

The rear (northern) outbuildings face onto the road to the west. The former butcher's shop adjoining the farmhouse service room is single storey with three windows under segmental arches; the central window blocks the original doorway. It has a gable-ended thatched roof. To the north is a rubble barn with a gable-ended corrugated iron roof. Its main (west-facing) front comprises a large double doorway to the threshing floor towards the right end and two unglazed windows to the left with buttresses between.

Interior carpentry detail in the farmhouse is hidden by 19th-century plaster. The exterior of the right end wall of the main block, which is exposed in the stable block, clearly shows two separate cob builds. The 17th-century work, complete with gable, includes an oak 2-light window with chamfered mullion at first-floor level. The late 18th to early 19th-century cob shows that at that time the house was widened towards the front and raised in height. The roof comprises tie beam trusses with a King post nailed to the front of each truss. Outbuilding interiors show plain 19th-century carpentry detail except the stable block, which includes a reused early 17th-century ogee-moulded beam with step stops.

Coleford is an unusually unspoilt and picturesque hamlet. According to the owner, Browns Farm was formerly The Ship Inn, which was licensed in 1815.