Little Harford

This is a late 15th-early 16th century house, originally a farmhouse, with later 16th and 17th century additions and an 18th century extension. The walls are a mix of plastered rubble and cob, set on rubble foundations. The stacks are constructed of cob, stone, and brick, topped with brick. It has a thatched roof. The house is a long, low building facing north, originally a three-room-and-through-passage house with an inner room to the left (east) and an 18th century kitchen extension to the service room on the right end. The hall has a stack backing onto the passage, and there are projecting end stacks to the inner room and kitchen. It is now two storeys throughout. The front has an irregular arrangement of four windows, varying in type, size, and date. A large 20th-century gabled porch, containing a reset 16th-century flat-arched doorway, is located to the left of centre and provides access to the passage. A 20th-century pantry projects to the right with a monopitch tiled roof. The hall and inner room windows to the right have late 17th century oak frames with flat-faced mullions, small internal ogee moulds, vertical iron bars, leaded rectangular panes, and iron casements; three lights to the hall and four to the inner room. Above, there are 19th-century casements in half-dormer windows with gabled roofs. To the left of the porch is a secondary door to the kitchen, and 19th-century horizontal sliding sashes to the service room and kitchen, alongside a single first-floor flat-roofed half-dormer with a 19th-century casement. The roof is hipped to the left and gabled to the right. The south side also features an irregular arrangement of 19th and 20th century wooden casements with glazing bars. The interior of the house is in good condition and reflects a complex structural history. Originally an open hall, it was later divided by low partitions and has an open hearth fireplace. The roof structure and thatch over the passage, hall, and inner room are heavily smoke-blackened. The hall and lower side of the passage are supported by side-pegged jointed crucks and a unique oak post construction rises from ground level to support the scarfed junction of the ridge and a braced cross-piece that carries the purlin joints. It is probable that a truss has been removed. The ground floor cob crosswall may be original. The roof over the service room was rebuilt, likely at the same time as the hall fireplace was inserted. It includes a hip-cruck in the former end wall. On the ground floor, the lower side of the passage is lined with a 16th-century oak plank-and-muntin screen which may be an original low partition. The service room was floored in the 16th century incorporating a chamfered oak beam with step stops. The hall fireplace, constructed of cob and stone with a plain chamfered oak lintel, was probably inserted at the same time as a short length of oak plank-and-muntin screen alongside the stack from the passage to the hall, featuring a flat-arched door and step stops. The hall floor has an axial beam, also chamfered with step stops. The inner room fireplace was rebuilt in the early 19th century using brick, and the 18th-century kitchen fireplace includes a cloam oven to the left and a later 19th-century oven to the right. This is an intriguing late medieval farmhouse.