Rensey Farmhouse

Rensey Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating to the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with alterations from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The structure is plastered cob on rubble footings, with rubble or cob stacks topped with 20th-century brick and a corrugated asbestos roof, formerly thatched. Originally a three-room-and-cross-passage plan house facing south, it appears a rear passage door never existed due to the steep slope. End stacks are present to the former service and inner rooms, and a rear corner stack is located at the upper end of the hall.

The front of the house presents an irregular three-window façade featuring various late 19th and 20th-century casement windows, most with glazing bars. A front passage doorway is positioned left of centre, leading to the former passage, and a secondary doorway is at the right end, leading to the former inner room. Both doorways have early 20th-century plank doors. The gable-ended roof is of corrugated asbestos.

The interior was modernised in the late 19th century, but some features from the late 16th, early 17th, and 17th centuries remain, though their exact interpretation is not always clear. Full-height cob crosswalls are at each end of the hall. The service end room is small, with a blocked fireplace and no lower passage screen. The hall contains an intriguing arrangement of early to mid-17th-century beams, some potentially in their original positions. The main crossbeam has an unusual mirror-section double-ogee moulding on its upper side and is chamfered on its lower side. A small axial beam, visible from the upper end side, exhibits a double-ovolo moulding towards the front of the house and a chamfer to the rear, with step stops on both sides. A half beam against the rear wall is chamfered with bar-scroll stops. A mid to late 17th-century diagonal corner fireplace is located in the upper end corner, built of rubble with a plain oak lintel and a blocked side oven. The hall is lined with reset sections of 17th-century oak small-field panelling. The former inner room has a 17th-century axial beam, which may have been raised in the 19th century. The fireplace was rebuilt in the 19th century, but the original late 16th to early 17th-century oak lintel, soffit-chamfered with step stops, was reused at a higher level than originally. On the first floor, it is recorded that a third cob partition once existed over the hall crossbeam. A 17th-century A-frame truss with pegged lap-jointed collar is present over the inner room, with a 20th-century roof over the hall.