Coxland Farmhouse

Farmhouse. Probably dating from the 16th century, it was improved in the 17th century. The walls are plastered cob on rubble footings, with some 19th-century brick rebuilding. The stacks are of volcanic ashlar and rubble, with brick, and the roof is corrugated asbestos (formerly thatched). The farmhouse forms the south-east side of a courtyard arrangement. It originally had a three-room-and-through-passage plan, with an inner room to the north-east. The rear passage door has been blocked, and a new door has been inserted into the service room. There’s a front lateral stack to the hall, and an end stack to the service room. The roof is gable-ended. The front has 20th-century iron and wooden casement windows of differing sizes and irregular arrangement. The front door has a richly-moulded 17th-century oak frame with urn stops behind a 20th-century gabled, slate-roofed porch. Immediately to the right is a massive, plastered, projecting lateral hall stack with an exposed volcanic ashlar chimney shaft topped with a moulded cap, which may be from the 16th century. Further to the right, between the hall and inner room windows, is another lateral projection of uncertain function. The service end appears to have been substantially rebuilt. Most original features are hidden behind 18th and 19th-century plasterwork. In the service room there are chamfered oak crossbeams, one from the 16th century with stepped stops, and one 17th-century half-beam with scroll stops. The passage and hall have 17th-century moulded plaster cornices, and a 17th-century ogee-moulded oak doorframe from the hall to the inner room. The roof is inaccessible. Rear wings include a 19th-century, two-storey, slate-roofed north-east range, containing a ground-floor dairy and a chamber above, with a 12-pane sash window. There’s an 18th-century, two-storey store with a slate roof, hipped at each end to the north-west, and a 20th-century brick, single-storey dairy to the south-west, off the service room.