Cleaveanger Farmhouse Including Barn Adjoining To East

Cleaveanger Farmhouse with adjoining barn to the east

A farmhouse of late 15th to early 16th-century origin, with major expansions in the 16th and 17th centuries, substantially rearranged and enlarged circa 1830-40. The older parts are constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings; the 19th-century work is plastered rubble. Stone rubble chimney stacks with plastered shafts of 19th-century brick support slate roofs, some of which have been replaced with corrugated asbestos; the earlier parts were formerly thatched.

The complex building history has produced a rambling plan. The original house appears to have been a 3-room-and-through-passage plan facing south, with the inner room at the west end. What is now the barn was originally the service end room. The hall contained a massive axial stack at its upper end. A late 16th to early 17th-century rear block was added at right angles to the rear of the inner room, with an end stack, at which point the inner room likely became a buttery. Around 1830-40, a new 2-room block with central entrance hall and staircase was constructed a short distance in front of the main range, connected by a narrow lobby. This 19th-century block has end stacks and provided new principal rooms, overlapping the inner room/buttery and part of the hall, and extending slightly beyond the west end.

The 19th-century front block is of 2 storeys with a symmetrical 3-window façade arranged around a central doorway. The original 4-panel door has an overlight with central glazing bar, panelled reveals, and is sheltered by a flat-roofed Tuscan porch with granite columns and moulded entablature. Flanking 16-pane sashes flank the door; a central first-floor 12-pane sash lights the chamber above. Stucco quoins mark all corners. The eaves are carried on pairs of shaped brackets. The original cast-iron gutter remains, decorated with lion's head masks over the joints. The roof is hipped at each end and flanked by plastered chimney shafts. The west end has a 2-window front, with blind windows to the front and 16-pane sashes to the rear.

The original main block front displays a 20th-century casement without glazing bars lighting the hall, and a 19th-century glazed casement to the chamber above. Two doors are positioned to the right, one leading to the barn and former through-passage. The rear wall contains a 19th-century door into the hall and a 17th-century oak 2-light window with chamfered mullion above. The rear block's outer side includes an 18th-century oak 3-light flat-faced mullion window with rectangular leaded glass panes (first floor right) and an early 19th-century tripartite sash with 16-pane centre light (ground floor left), alongside various 19th and 20th-century casements. The main and rear blocks have gable-ended roofs.

The interior is of considerable architectural significance, with a complex structural history. The original roof survives above the hall and former passage and service end (now barn), spanning 4 bays. The uppermost truss at the hall's upper end is largely boxed in but appears to be a tie-beam truss, suggesting it has always been closed. The other 3 trusses are jointed crucks of similar but not identical construction; the barn truss is face-pegged with a slip tenon. All carry substantial timbers with cranked collars and an apex yoke of Alcock's type L1. A single butt purlin of large scantling runs throughout, and at the barn end a timber supporting the ridge shows that the roof was originally half-hipped. The central hall truss features chamfered arch-braces with mostly intact single sets of windbraces on either side. The hall roof retains most of its original common rafters and is heavily sooted, indicating original heating by open hearth fire. The present hall chamber ceiling is carried on timbers hung between the purlins; some are smoke-blackened and apparently in situ, though their original function is unclear. The barn roof is clean, suggesting the lower hall crosswall is original.

The barn truss appears to have been designed as an open structure; below it sits an original oak plank-and-muntin screen functioning as a low partition screen, with chamfered muntins featuring cut diagonal stops and a hollow-chamfered cornice. The screen includes shoulder-headed doorways (one slightly damaged). Crude cob-nogged large-framed infill above is sooted on the hall side only and incorporates a probably 18th-century window with leaded panes. Whether this was originally the upper or lower passage screen remains unclear; if the latter—as seems more probable—then the plastered partition beyond may be the original hall-passage screen.

The hall was floored over in the late 16th or early 17th century with a soffit-chamfered and flat pyramid-stopped crossbeam. The hall fireplace is now blocked but must date to this period or slightly earlier. The rear extension is probably contemporary, its axial beam resembling the hall crossbeam. The hall contains reset 17th-century oak-panelled wainscotting and a late 17th to early 18th-century full-height cupboard with fielded panel doors. The stair alongside the hall fireplace is likely 19th-century. The stairhead doorframe from the hall chamber is 17th-century, oak, and chamfered with scroll stops; another doorframe with exaggerated scroll stops divides the hall chamber into 2 spaces. The rear windows are also 17th-century oak with chamfered mullions; two 3-light window frames remain but are blocked by the outshot roof. The crosswing roof dates to the 18th century. The barn (former service end) is partly floored and contains a 19th-century cider press with cast-iron screw. The circa 1830-40 block retains much original joinery, including a stick baluster stair with mahogany handrail, and is roofed with king post trusses.

Because the original house was substantially rearranged circa 1830-40 and certain early features are hidden behind 19th-century plaster, a definitive interpretation remains impossible. Some scholars have suggested it may have been a longhouse. Nevertheless, sufficient evidence survives to demonstrate this is an important and interesting late medieval house that preserves widespread evidence of its development through the later 16th and 17th centuries. Cleaveanger is first recorded in 1278 as 'Clifhangre', though alternative interpretations of the building's evolution have been proposed by architectural historians.