Way Farmhouse

A farmhouse dating from approximately the late 16th or early 17th century, with a rear wing added in the mid to late 17th century. The building is constructed of colourwashed rendered cob and stone with a thatched roof featuring plain ridge tiles and gabled ends to both the main range and rear wing. The stacks include a cob and stone axial stack with rendered shaft positioned left of centre on the main range, a right end stack with brick shaft, and a further brick-shafted stack serving the rear left wing.

The main range faces west and originally formed a three-room house with a through or cross passage. The passage now sits at the left end of the structure, as the original lower end room has been thoroughly rebuilt and absorbed into an adjoining barn. The hall occupies the position to the right of the passage and is heated by the axial stack that backs on to the passage. A newel stair, external to the rear wall and contained within the rear wing, provides access to the upper floor. The inner room at the right end is heated from the right end stack.

The rear left service wing represents a subsequent 17th-century addition, presumably replacing the old lower end. It comprises a kitchen at the east end and a small unheated service room to the west, with an axial passage behind it forming a continuation of the through passage of the main range. The service room appears to result from an early 18th-century rearrangement of what was originally a single-room kitchen wing. A large heated chamber occupies the first floor above the kitchen. A short two-storey rear projection at right angles to the inner room is a puzzling feature of the plan, with external access only at ground floor level and the small first floor room entered from the room above the inner room. This projection dates to the 17th century and forms an extremely narrow and awkward yard with the service wing.

The exterior comprises two storeys with an asymmetrical two-window west elevation. The thatch eaves are eyebrowed over the first floor windows. A plank front door serves the passage at the left. A three-light 18th or 19th-century casement with six panes per light lights the hall at ground floor right; a 20th-century two-light casement with two panes per light occupies the right position. The first floor left window, probably dating to the 18th century, is a three-light casement with timber stanchions and square leaded panes, while the first floor right window is a two-light casement with two panes per light. A change in plane on the front wall suggests the right end inner room may have been rebuilt.

The south elevation of the service wing features an approximately central doorway with various casement windows. Immediately to the right of the door stands a two-light 17th-century timber ovolo-moulded mullioned window, now reduced from its original size, with a three-light 16th or 17th-century timber mullioned window at a higher level to the right, featuring deeply chamfered mullions. The rear north elevation of the service wing has a chamfered doorframe leading into the axial passage behind the dairy.

The interior contains numerous features of interest. The hall features a large open fireplace with volcanic trap chamfered ashlar jambs, a blocked bread oven, and a chamfered oak lintel. An axial beam and two half beams display cyma reversa mouldings and step stops; the main axial beam is rather awkwardly mortised into the head beam of a plank and muntin screen at the higher end of the hall and appears secondary to it. The screen has muntins chamfered and stopped on the hall side only and plain to the inner room. The inner room contains a deeply chamfered plastered-over cross beam and an open fireplace with moulded volcanic trap jambs featuring cushion stops; the lintel replaces a damaged moulded example.

The kitchen contains two massive scroll-stopped crossbeams, one partly extending into the unheated dairy, and a massive blocked fireplace with a scroll-stopped lintel and jambs surviving. On either side of the fireplace are two recesses: the left may have served as a smoking chamber, while the right hand recess, which does not appear to replace an earlier stair, has a puzzling function despite being lit by one of the mullioned windows and entered through a chamfered doorframe.

The newel stair rising from the hall has solid timber baulk treads and a polygonal oak newel post. A small lobby at the top of the stairs contains 17th-century chamfered stopped doorways leading into the two first floor rooms.

The roof of the main range comprises side-pegged jointed crucks with a diagonally-set ridge, with collars mortised into the principal rafters. One truss and remnants of a second continue into the adjoining barn at the left end, where one cruck foot is visible resting on stone rubble footings of the front wall. A closed truss spans the hall and inner room partition. The trusses over the service wing are probably late 17th-century with straight principals and collars halved and pegged on to the rafters. The truss in the small rear right projection also appears to be 17th-century but features queen struts between collar and principals. None of the roof trusses is smoke-blackened.

This is an attractive and evolved farmhouse displaying a wealth of interesting interior features.