Cleaves Farmhouse

Cleaves Farmhouse is a farmhouse that dates back to the 16th century, with significant improvements and an extension made in the 17th and 18th centuries. The building is constructed of plastered rubble, with some cob, and features a plastered rubble extension. It has a rubble stack topped with 20th-century brick and a corrugated iron roof, which was formerly thatch. The original layout was a three-room-and-cross-passage plan, facing southeast, with the former inner room located at the left (northeastern) end. An 18th-century one-room extension is found at the right end. The house has projecting end stacks for the inner room and rear lateral stacks for the hall and service rooms. It is two storeys high and has a regular five-window front featuring 20th-century casements, some of which have glazing bars. The front door, located roughly in the center, leads to the passage and is accompanied by a 20th-century gabled porch with a pantile roof. There is a secondary door at the left end that leads to the extension. The roof is half-hipped to the right and hipped to the left, with both rear stacks having tall chimney shafts made of 20th-century brick. There is no evidence of a blocked rear passage doorway.

Inside, the lower side of the passage features a late 16th to early 17th-century oak plank-and-muntin screen, which includes a central flat-arched door. The muntins are chamfered only on the passage side, and the stops are worn. There is a cob crosswall on the upper side of the passage. The hall contains a high-quality late 16th to early 17th-century volcanic ashlar fireplace, complete with an oak lintel and an ogee-moulded surround featuring chamfer-roll stops. The oven has been demolished, and its stone doorway is now glazed and used as a window. The partition between the hall and the inner room has mostly been removed. Both the hall and inner room likely have plain chamfered axial beams from the 17th century. The service room features a late 17th to early 18th-century chamfered half beam with run-out stops, along with a stone rubble fireplace that has a plain oak lintel and a rear oven, also likely from the late 17th to early 18th century. The main house has a late 17th to early 18th-century five-bay roof, which consists of A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars and X-apexes, including a couple of reused smoke-blackened common rafters. The extension has a similar but clearly secondary two-bay roof.