Penford Farmhouse

Farmhouse. Dating back to the 16th century, Penford Farmhouse was significantly altered in the 17th and 18th centuries and modernized around 1979. The walls are plastered cob on rubble footings, with rubble stacks topped with 19th and 20th-century brick, and a thatched roof. The house was originally built with a 3-room-and-through-passage plan, situated down a slope and facing south, with a former inner room on the uphill right (east) end. A projecting rear lateral stack serves the end room, and an axial stack at the upper end of the hall houses back-to-back fireplaces. A rear addition was built around 1972. The front has an irregular arrangement of three windows, featuring similar late 19th and 20th-century replacement casements with glazing bars. The passage door, to the left of centre, is a late 19th-century plank door with an overlight, matched by a similar door to the rear, and a late 19th-century gabled porch with shaped bargeboards and a replacement corrugated iron roof and sides. The roof is hipped to the left and gable-ended to the right. The service end stack has a tall chimney shaft of 19th-century brick. Inside, the construction reflects various periods. A short length of a 17th-century oak plank-and-muntin screen remains, with chamfered muntins featuring scroll stops. A similar finish is present on a half beam across the service room chimney breast. The service room contains a late 17th-century crossbeam and fireplace; the crossbeam is unstopped with a deep chamfer, and the fireplace incorporates a plain oak lintel resting on oak pads, a stone oven to the left, and a seat on the right side. The hall has two chamfered and roll-stopped crossbeams dating from the late 16th to early 17th century. The stack at the upper end was likely substantially rebuilt in the late 18th to early 19th century. The roof is inaccessible, but exposed portions of the principals indicate a surviving late 17th or 18th-century A-frame truss roof.