Waterslade Farmhouse

HOCKWORTHY ST 01 NW 4/77 Waterslade Farmhouse - GV II Farmhouse. Early or mid C16 with later C16 and C17 improvements including a major early C17 renovation, C18 rear block. Plastered stone rubble chimneyshafts topped with C20 brick; red tile roof to main block, formerly thatch, corrugated iron roof to the rear block. Plan and development: L-plan building. The main block has an unusual 3-room-and- through-passge plan and it faces south. At the left (west) end there is a kitchen with a gable-end stack with a winder stair alongside to rear. The centre room was small and unheated, probably a former dairy, and now the partition between it and the kitchen has been removed and the 2 rooms united. To right of the dairy is the passage and, at the right end, the hall or parlour with an axial stack backing onto the passage. The staircase here is a rebuild of an early C17 one. This layout is essentially the result of the early C17 renovation. There is some evidence of earlier fabric but not enough is exposed to determine the C16 layout. Furthermore the plan is not conventional. Nevertheless it is clear that the early or mid C16 house was open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. In the C18 an unheated 1-room plan extension was added to rear of the hall/parlour. House is 2 storeys throughout. Exterior: irregular 4-window front of C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars. Passage front doorway is right of centre and contains a C20 panelled door behind a contemporary thatch-roofed porch on rustic posts. Roof is gable-ended to left and hipped to right. Interior: is well-preserved. The kitchen has a large stone rubble fireplace. The oak lintel soffit is raised with rounded corners and is chamfered. The left side has been infilled by a secondary side oven. Alongside to right is an oak crank- headed door to a newel stair with solid oak baulk stops. The crossbeam is soffit- chamfered with pyramid stops. The kitchen-dairy partition was an oak plank-and- muntin screen but now only the headbeam remains. The hall/parlour has a stone rubble fireplace. Its oak lintel and the axial ceiling beam are both soffit- chamfered with bar-runout stops. The stairs have been replaced but the crossbeam flush with the chimneybreast has a cranked doorhood proving that there was a stair built here in the early C17. For the most part the roof is early C17. The lower parts of the trusses are plastered over but their curving shape indicates (jointed?) cruck construction. There is an oak-framed closed truss over the kitchen-dairy partition. Over the passage there is an early or mid C16 truss which is smoke- blackened from the original open hearth fire. A couple of smoke-blackened common rafters are embedded in the other side of the hall/parlour stack. The rear block has plain carpentry detail.

Listing NGR: ST0443019082