Thatches Farmhouse

Thatches Farmhouse

Farmhouse, dating from the early 16th century with major improvements made in the later 16th and 17th centuries. The building was refurbished and rearranged somewhat in the late 19th century. It is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks and stone rubble chimneyshafts topped with 19th and 20th century brick. The roof is thatch, with slate covering the rear outshots.

The farmhouse is a two-storey building with secondary outshots across the rear, which have been rebuilt in the 20th century. The main block faces onto a garden to the south-east and follows an altered 4-room-and-through-passage plan. The left end contains the former service kitchen with a large gable-end stack and a newel stair alcove rising to the rear. A former walk-in curing chamber projects forward from this end. The kitchen was enlarged by removal of the lower passage screen. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the site of the former passage and has been enlarged slightly by moving the upper hall partition into the former inner room. In the 19th century, this inner room was converted to the entrance hall containing a new stair. The fourth room at the right end is a parlour with an end stack and an alcove alongside for a newel stair. A rear block projects at right angles from the hall and passage, with an outer lateral stack. An alcove in the angle of the two wings was probably used for a newel stair from the hall.

The early 16th century house originally consisted of a 3-room-and-through-passage section. It was open to the roof from end to end, divided by low partitions, and heated by an open hearth fire. During the later 16th and 17th centuries, the hall stack was inserted and the house was progressively floored over. The service end was refurbished with a new kitchen fireplace in the early or mid-17th century. The parlour extension and rear block were probably added around the same time. The house underwent significant remodelling in the 19th century when the original passage was abandoned, a new entrance inserted into the former inner room, and a new main stair built.

The exterior presents an irregular 5-window front with 19th and 20th century timber and iron-framed casements containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The first-floor windows rise into the thatch. The roof is gable-ended with an uneven ridge line.

All ground-floor rooms contain similar cross or axial beams with deep hollow chamfers and step stops. The fireplaces are constructed of stone rubble with soffit-chamfered oak lintels, the parlour fireplace featuring step stops. In the former kitchen stands the headbeam of an oak plank-and-muntin screen that formerly made up the passage lower partition. The parlour contains a curious oak-framed alcove in the front wall.

The early 16th century roof structure survives intact over the original part of the main block. It is carried on a series of side-pegged jointed crucks. The entire roof, including common rafters and underside of the thatch, is smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. The upper hall crosswall is smoke-blackened on the hall side, showing that the inner room chamber was built before the hall fireplace was installed. A hip cruck arrangement over the former inner room proves that the parlour is an extension. The roof over this part is inaccessible, although the base of a side-pegged jointed cruck truss is visible on the first floor.

This is an attractive and well-preserved farmhouse with a long and complex structural history of considerable interest.