Houndsmoor Farmhouse

UPLOWMAN ST 01 NW 4/165 Houndsmoor Farmhouse - - II Farmhouse. Mid C17, refurbished in the late C19. Plastered stone rubble; stone rubble stack with its original tall divided chimneyshaft of stone rubble, extended with C19 brick; coated slate roof, originally thatch. Plan and development: 5-room plan lobby entrance house facing south built down a relatively steep hillslope. Uphill at the right (east) end there is a small unheated room with no connecting doorway from the main house. The next room is the parlour and the centre room the original kitchen. A large axial stack between parlour and kitchen serves back-to-back fireplaces. In front of the stack is the lobby entrance and the stair rises from the parlour behind the stack. Downhill at the left (west) end there are 2 unheated rooms, the end one was probably a dairy. The inner room here is no wider than a passage but there is no evidence of doorways either end. This appears to be a single phase farmhouse. However in the C19 the roof was rebuilt apparently at a higher level than the original. House is 2 storeys. Exterior: irregular 4-window front still contains 3 probably original windows; oak- framed with slender chamfered mullions and containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. (There is another on the back). The rest have been replaced with C20 casements without glazing bars. The lobby entrance is roughly central and now contains a C20 plank door with a contemporary gabled porch. The right end room has a front doorway containing another C20 plank door. The roof is gable-ended and steps down in level in the centre. Before the roof was raised the divided chimneyshaft must have been a dominating feature; it is still quite impressive. Interior: the left end room (the dairy) axial beams, the kitchen and parlour crossbeams are all soffit-chamfered with step-stops. The partitions between the 2 left end service rooms and between service room and kitchen are plastered but the former appears to include a cranked doorhead and in the latter the headbeam shows of what appears to be (or have been) an oak plank-and-muntin screen. The kitchen has a large stone rubble fireplace with a soffit-chamfered and scroll-stoppped oak lintel. Roof not inspected but the bases of apparently C19 A-frame trusses show on the first floor. This is an interesting single phase C17 farmhouse. It is high in the hills and may represent a C17 enclosure.

Listing NGR: ST0154317378