The Paddocks

The Paddocks is a house, originally a farmhouse, dating to the early to mid-17th century, with possible earlier origins. It was substantially refurbished and possibly extended in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and received a 20th-century extension to the rear. The construction is of plastered cob on exposed rubble, rising to the first floor, with rubble stacks topped with 20th-century brick, and a slate roof. The house has a 3-room-and-cross-passage plan, oriented south, with an axial stack serving the left (west) room and a projecting stack at the right end. A 20th-century extension occupies the rear. The façade has two storeys and is irregularly divided into four window bays, incorporating some late 19th-century casement windows with glazing bars, alongside more recent casement windows with glazing bars. A centrally placed door leads to a 20th-century plank porch with a gable roof. The roof is hipped at both ends.

The interior is largely good, although some original features are obscured by 20th-century modernization. The right-hand room exhibits early to mid-17th-century chamfered crossbeams with ornate lozenge and nick stops, along with a stone fireplace featuring an oak lintel, chamfered with run-out stops and with a left-side oven. The central room has a simple chamfered beam. These two rooms may represent the original house, with the left-hand room being added in the late 17th or early 18th century. An indefinite butt join is visible on the front elevation. The left-hand room features a fireplace with an unfinished oak lintel. The ceiling displays a geometric pattern of bolection moulded plaster ribs radiating from a central roundel. A rear wall doorway leads to a straight flight of stairs with a moulded plaster cornice. The first floor rooms contain similar late 17th- to early 18th-century moulded plasterwork, with cornices that project forward around the feet of the roof principal rafters. The first floor includes late 17th- to early 18th-century doors, including a two-panel door hung on HL hinges with an ornate wrought iron catch in the left-end master chamber, and a plank door with cover moulds in the right-end chamber. The roof incorporates roughly finished A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars, with a tenon extended at each apex to form a cross and carry the ridge. The unusually shallow roof pitch suggests it has been slated since the late 17th or early 18th century. The property was formerly known as Paradise Farm.