Stagg Mill Farmhouse

Stagg Mill Farmhouse

Farmhouse dating from the late 16th to early 17th century, possibly with earlier origins, though thoroughly modernised in the early 19th century. The building is constructed mostly of plastered stone rubble with some cob, stone rubble stacks with 19th-century brick chimneyshafts, and a slate roof, formerly thatched.

The house follows an L-plan, with the main block built across the hillslope with its rear terraced into it and facing east. It contains a four-room plan. At the left (south) end is the kitchen with a projecting rear lateral stack. Between this and the former hall (now the dining room) is the main stair and a small unheated room. The hall has a projecting rear lateral stack. At the right (north) end of the main block are two small rooms, one behind the other, the front one having a gable end stack. At the right end, a three-room plan block set at right angles projects forward, overlapping only the front corner of the main block. Although the main block was thoroughly refurbished in the 19th century, the layout appears to follow a late 16th to early 17th century (possibly earlier) four-room-and-through-passage plan. The left room is the service end kitchen. Next to it is an unheated dairy, and the present stair may occupy the site of the passage, though the slope of the land to the rear suggests there was no rear doorway. The dining room occupies the former hall and the former inner room has been subdivided. The stack here is probably secondary. The front wing is a parlour crosswing with an unheated room. The larger middle room has a projecting outer lateral stack. In the 19th century a staircase was inserted here with a new front doorway. The front end room may be a 19th-century addition. The house is two storeys.

The exterior features an irregular five-window front of mostly 19th and 20th-century casements, the latest without glazing bars. The two first floor windows at the left end may be 18th century; they have flat-faced mullions and contain rectangular panes of leaded glass, the left one with original ferramenta. The front doorway is left of centre and contains a late 19th-century door behind a contemporary gabled porch. The wing has a three-window front of similar 19th and 20th-century casements and the doorway contains a 19th-century six-panel door behind a later gabled porch. The main block roof is gable-ended. The wing is hipped at the front. The rear of the main block contains a couple of single light windows, each a 17th-century casement reset back to front; one has an ornate wrought iron catch. The rear end of the wing includes a Beerstone plaque inscribed J and AC, 1657.

The interior of the main block shows mostly early 19th and 20th-century detail. The kitchen fireplace, though lined with 19th-century brick, has a 17th-century chamfered oak lintel. Other early features may survive here under 19th-century plaster. The rear room of the parlour crosswing has a late 16th to early 17th-century plank-and-muntin screen between it and the 19th-century stairs inserted into the main parlour. The muntins are chamfered with run-out stops on both sides and include a Tudor arch doorway with moulded surround. The ceiling is carried on a contemporary nine-panel intersecting beam ceiling with richly moulded beams. The panels contain ornamental plasterwork, probably early 17th century. Each panel contains floral sprays in the corners and a central motif such as a bird amongst oak leaves or a Pegasus. The centre room, the main parlour, has a four-panel intersecting beam ceiling according to the owner, but it is now hidden. The fireplace here is blocked. The roof was not inspected, but the owner reports 19th-century roof construction throughout.