Cowlins Farmhouse

Cowlins Farmhouse

A farmhouse of 16th-century date or earlier with later alterations and extensions.

The building is of jointed-cruck construction with cob infill on a stone plinth. The exterior is rendered in cement with some repair and infill in stone and brick. 21st-century alterations include concrete block and uPVC casements. The roof is covered in slate with red brick stacks, and the north outshut is constructed of brick.

The farmhouse was originally built on a north-west to south-east orientation as an open hall, possibly with a cross passage and a parlour with solar above to the north end. A first floor, and possibly a projecting stair turret, were inserted in the 17th century, though the plan is now altered by an early 20th-century central staircase and a 21st-century replacement of the hall first floor. Outshuts flank each end, and the main roof is half-hipped.

The principal south-west elevation has four bays with a modern projecting porch to the second bay from the left. Window openings are set irregularly and have been altered. The south corner of the elevation is rounded in render. The south-east flank has an outshut at lower ground level with altered openings and a brick stack. The rear has an outshut with a porch extension. The rear elevation of the farmhouse features a central brick outshut adjoining a brick chimney with stack above and, to its right, the possible stair turret. To the right end is a brick outshut with garage doors facing north, with a red brick stack at the north end of the half-hip roof.

The main entrance opens to an inserted 20th-century timber staircase with rooms to each side constructed of 21st-century blockwork: the former hall to the right and the parlour to the left. To the right of the top of the staircase are two 16th or 17th-century oak ceiling beams. One has mortices for a former cross passage screen, and the second has deep chamfers and bar stops with the end in the front wall underbuilt in rubble stone. Lower in the wall, within the former open hall, is an embedded large oak bressumer serving an infilled inglenook. The other section of bressumer has been relocated to the back wall and a replacement inglenook built within a brick chimney next to the foot of a jointed cruck truss. To the right of the fireplace a window may be a former door opening, and the opposite front wall has an aligned door head that may indicate a former cross passage.

The first-floor structure over the hall is a 21st-century replacement, though the oak beam to the 17th-century floor structure remains in situ in the end wall. The room at the parlour end, to the left of the staircase, retains the 17th-century first-floor structure with a central stop-chamfered spine beam and a deep-chamfered beam in the end wall across an inserted chimney. The floor is supported at the staircase end by two bolted modern timbers. To the rear wall of the first floor is a pegged oak doorway with a four-centred Tudor arch and steps down to a bathroom, which may be the location of a former stair turret. The first floor is subdivided by two 21st-century blockwork walls. The roof structure is exposed and comprises three oak jointed cruck trusses with smoke-blackening, some replaced purlins, and 20th-century strengthening in the form of collars set low on the trusses. The smoke-blackened ridge piece is set diagonally.