Lower Besley Farmhouse

Lower Besley Farmhouse is a farmhouse of mid to late 16th-century date, possibly with earlier origins, substantially improved in the late 16th and 17th centuries, with some 19th and 20th-century modernisation. The building is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks and chimneyshafts, and an asbestos slate roof (formerly thatched).

The house follows a five-room-and-through-passage plan, facing south. The eastern end contains a former service kitchen with a gable-end stack. Adjoining this is a small unheated room, originally perhaps a dairy but now used as a bathroom. On the far side of the passage stands the hall, with its stack backing onto the passage. At the upper end of the hall is another small unheated room, and beyond that the western end room with a gable-end stack, possibly originally a parlour. A single-storey unheated service room projects at right angles in front, overlapping this end room. The passage rear doorway is now blocked, and a gabled stair turret projects to the rear. The roof is inaccessible, but the building's layout and evidence suggest it was originally an open hall house, with the hall open to the roof and heated by an open hearth. The hall was floored over in the late 16th or early 17th century, when the service end was refurbished as a kitchen and the left end parlour was added.

The house is two storeys with a single-storey 20th-century extension to the rear. The south-facing front is irregular, with four windows of various 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The passage front doorway contains an old studded plank door behind a 20th-century gabled porch. The roof is gable-ended.

The interior retains significant 16th and 17th-century fabric beneath 19th and 20th-century modernisation. All fireplaces are now blocked. At least two oak plank-and-muntin screens are plastered over, one on the lower side of the passage and another at the upper end of the hall; a third may exist between the former dairy and kitchen. The kitchen has a chamfered cross beam with lambstongue stops and remnants of a mid to late 17th-century moulded plaster cornice. The stair turret is 17th century or earlier, though it now contains a 20th-century stair. The hall features a fine late 16th to early 17th-century nine-panel ceiling of deeply chamfered intersecting beams. The inner room contains a mid-16th-century half beam, chamfered with pyramid stops. Between this and the end room stands the former end solid wall. The end room has an axial beam with deep hollow chamfers, and further beams are papered over, including a jowl-headed post in the rear wall. A side-pegged jointed cruck is visible over the hall. Considerable 16th and 17th-century fabric remains hidden; care should be taken during any building works to avoid disturbing early features.