Leigh Hill Farmhouse

Leigh Hill Farmhouse is a detached house, originally a farmhouse, dating from the 17th century. It is constructed of a roughcast cob and stone mix, with a gable-end roof. The house was originally a 3-room through-passage plan, with the service room to the right of the passage. The layout is a simple 3-cell structure, with the service room, passage, and inner room each separated by closed jointed cruck trusses. A large internal stack serves the service end, an axial stack backing onto the passage serves the hall, and an external end stack serves the inner room. The latter is built with exceptionally large bricks. The hall stack is dated 'S.P.' 1765. A stair bulge is positioned to the rear of the hall, aligned with the hall stack, and contains wider stairs.

The front elevation has a 4-window range; the first floor has 2-light casement windows, two of which were added in the 1980s. The ground floor includes a French window in the inner room, C20 casement windows to the hall and service end, and a glazed door to the passage. A large buttress is located against the hall wall. The rear elevation features two old 3-light casement windows, one serving the stair bulge, with later 19th century and late 20th century windows elsewhere.

Inside, the house retains a good set of 17th-century fittings. The service end fireplace has a massive chamfered lintel and an above-it cross ceiling beam, chamfered with scroll stops that does not extend the entire width of the house, suggesting a potential former newel stair at that end. There's also a boxed cross ceiling beam. The hall fireplace is deep but blocked. The stairs are intact, featuring a polygonal newel post, splat balusters, and an extra rail to the landing where the upper rail is ramped. The door to the stairs has fielded panels and HL hinges. Understairs cupboards are present, planked with H hinges, with one accessible from a contemporary screenwork in the passage. The hall cross ceiling beam is chamfered with step stops. An original plank and muntin screen separates the hall from the inner room; it is of traditional form but with shallow chamfers to the muntins and vestigial carpenter’s mitres, stopped for a bench approximately 2½ feet above the floor. The inner room contains a chamfered, unstopped cross ceiling beam, and the fireplace has been rebuilt. The roof structure includes two jointed crucks, side pegged, but the roof space is not accessible.