Ratcliffes Farmhouse

Ratcliffes Farmhouse is a substantial farmhouse of late seventeenth or early eighteenth-century remodelling of a late sixteenth or early seventeenth-century building. It sits on the site of what was possibly a medieval open hall house, indicated by re-used smoke-blackened timbers found in the roof structure.

The exterior is rendered and colour-washed, built from local volcanic stone rubble with dressed quoins. The main range has cob work to the first floor front elevation to the left of the front door, while the rear wing is cob-built. The roof is thatched with a plain ridge, hipped at the ends of the main range and gabled at the ends of the rear wings; the rear right wing is tiled to the rear of the ridge. There is a right end stack with a brick shaft and two rear lateral stacks, one of which projects with set-offs.

The plan comprises a single-depth main range of four rooms wide (the right-hand room subdivided) with an approximately central through passage and left and right crosswings. This arrangement is probably derived from a late sixteenth or early seventeenth-century three-room and through-passage plan, though which end was the lower end is unclear. The room to the left of centre, heated by the lateral projecting stack, seems likely to have been the hall, though late sixteenth or early seventeenth-century carpentry in the right end room suggests this may have been the inner room or parlour of the pre-eighteenth-century phase, and the room to the right of centre may alternatively have been the hall. The circa late seventeenth or early eighteenth-century remodelling provided an almost symmetrical south-facing front elevation with two principal rooms to the left of the through passage. The room to the right of the passage probably served as a kitchen with a right-end service room and back kitchen in the rear right crosswing. The rear left crosswing appears to have functioned as an unheated dairy on the ground floor, with dressed quoins suggesting this wing post-dates the main range. The principal stair rises from the room to the left of the passage in a projecting turret, with access to the dairy wing via a lobby adjacent to the stair. The house is substantial in scale with the roofspace plastered and fitted out for additional accommodation. A twentieth-century single-storey lean-to has been added at the rear of the main range between the crosswings.

The south front is a handsome five-bay elevation, almost symmetrical, with an approximately central eighteenth-century front door with fielded panels and a thatched porch. An eight-pane sash window sits above the porch, while the other bays have sixteen-pane sashes except for the right-hand bay which has eight-pane sashes. A sundial dated 1720 is fixed to the front wall. The rear elevation features a good circa late seventeenth-century panelled door to the through passage. The stair turret has a corrugated iron lean-to roof and a probably eighteenth-century two-light casement with square leaded panes. Similar first-floor windows appear to the left of the stack and in the dairy wing, facing the rear courtyard. The dairy wing has an attic dormer in the thatch containing a circa late sixteenth or early seventeenth-century three-light timber mullioned window with a moulded frame and mullions.

Interior features are limited but significant. A deeply chamfered crossbeam with keeled step stops is present in the ground-floor room to the right, and a boxed-in crossbeam in the ground-floor room to the left. Both fireplaces to the lateral stacks have twentieth-century grates, probably concealing earlier lintels and jambs; a blocked fireplace exists in the ground-floor room to the right. The dairy and back kitchen have roughly chamfered crossbeams probably of eighteenth-century date. The principal stair is especially fine, circa late seventeenth-century, with elaborately turned balusters, a flat handrail, and a first-floor balustrade. The door to the stair and the adjacent door to the lobby leading to the dairy wing are set in a screen with a segmental arch and keyblock. The through passage is paved with volcanic stones from the nearby Raddon Quarry. Surviving eighteenth-century joinery includes numerous two-panel doors.

The roof trusses are pegged of an x-apex collar rafter design, with collars halved and pegged to the principal rafters. Timbers include smoke-blackened rafters and battens and one more substantial timber, presumably re-used from a medieval open hall house. The attics of the main range and dairy crosswing are plastered and were formerly reached from a stair in the right end of the main range. The right end of the main range attic is partitioned into a small room and clothes cupboard with a seventeenth-century doorframe with chamfered stopped jambs in the partition. A photograph taken during renovations shows timber lintels, now concealed by render, indicating paired windows narrower in width than the present sashes.