East Densham Farmhouse

Farmhouse, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, with substantial renovation and partial rebuilding around 1970. The structure is built with plastered cob on rubble footings, featuring rubble stacks with restored chimney shafts and a slate roof, formerly thatched until around 1970. It is a T-shaped building, with the main block facing south-east and a crosswing projecting to the front and rear on the south-west end. The main block originally comprised a hall, passage, and service room, characteristic of a 16th-century hall house, with a secondary room beyond the service room that was demolished around 1970. A two-room parlour crosswing is situated at the upper end of the hall. Stacks are located at the service room end, a front lateral stack to the hall, and an axial stack to the crosswing. The house has two storeys and an irregular three-window front, with circa 1970 replacement casement windows having glazing bars. A circa 1970 door leads to the passage, under a contemporary flat-roofed hood. While most windows appear to be replacements, many occupy old window embrasures. The stacks have been heavily repointed. The roofs are now gable ended; pre-renovation photographs show the front of the crosswing was formerly hipped, and a one-room extension existed at the service end, now demolished. The interior has been modernised. The service room end was completely rebuilt around 1970, but older fabric remains elsewhere. A rubble crosswall in the passage contains a 16th-century oak shoulder-headed arch. The hall features a restored rubble fireplace with a replacement oak lintel and a three-bay ceiling with late 16th to early 17th century chamfered and stop-chamfered crossbeams. A beam, originally from the service room, was moved to the hall around 1970 to replace a jetty created by the insertion of a chamber over the passage in the original open hall. The roof structure of the main block was completely replaced around 1970, replacing jointed cruck trusses. A portion of the original crosswing roof is said to remain but is inaccessible. A photograph shows a jointed cruck truss with unchamfered arch-bracing and windbraces, suggesting a late 15th to early 16th-century date, and indicating a parlour wing open to the roof and originally heated by an open hearth fire. The property’s name, Densham, was documented as the Domesday Manor of Donevoldeshame at the time of the Domesday Survey.