Hart'S Farmhouse

Hart's Farmhouse is likely a mid-17th century remodelling of an earlier building, with later alterations. The structure is built of random rubble chert and has a gable-end slate roof. Originally a four-room house (possibly evolving from a three-room plan), it features a through-passage. The original hall, heated by an axial stack backing onto the passage, was initially on the right side of the passage, but later became the principal room, heated by an axial stack (formerly an end stack). Around this time, a room was added to the left, heated by a now truncated external rear lateral stack, alongside a wing extending to the rear of this room and the original service room. This rear wing contains high-quality moulded ceiling beams, which appear to have been removed from the earlier hall when it was reduced in status. A rear wing includes both an axial and a truncated end stack, and brick chimney shafts, except for the original hall stack which is of dressed stone with a moulded cap and weathering. A main staircase is located to the rear of the early hall.

The exterior front has a five-window range, with mostly 20th-century casement windows, except for one 19th-century casement. There are two doors, one to the passage with a slate-roofed porch. Some buttressing is present. A weathered datestone, appearing to have circa 1650 decoration, is visible. The rear of the house has 19th-century casement windows with brick surrounds to the rear wing, along with a 19th-century outshut. Remains of an external stone staircase are found to one side of a truncated rear stack.

Inside, the principal room (originally divided from the passage by a dismantled plank and muntin screen) has a cross ceiling beam, chamfered with scroll stops. A doorway arch with a cranked lintel and an incised decorative loop at its apex provides access to the extreme left-hand room, which features three cross ceiling beams, chamfered and unstopped. The right-hand rooms have roughly worked or boxed cross ceiling beams. The rear wing contains three cross ceiling beams with composite cavetto and convex mouldings, seemingly dating back to the 16th century, but which are not in their original location. Two other doorway arches with similar decorative loop mouldings are found on the first floor. A painting of the house by Robert Bevan, a Camden Town School artist, is held by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.