Uplowman Court Farmhouse

Uplowman Court Farmhouse

A farmhouse and former manor house with origins in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, though most of the surviving structure dates from the 16th and 17th centuries, with substantial modernisation carried out in the mid-19th century. The building comprises a main block and an L-shaped crosswing, arranged on an irregular south-south-east-facing elevation.

The unmodernised sections are of exposed stone rubble, while the remainder is plastered stone rubble, probably with cob. Stone rubble chimney stacks are topped with 19th-century brick, some rendered. The roof is slate, originally thatch.

The main block follows a three-room plan with a large west-end room containing a gable-end stack; a centre room with an axial stack backing onto the left room; and a right room with an end stack. A cross passage separates the right and centre rooms. The crosswing, extending eastward, is L-shaped and contains three rooms arranged with a main front and back room either side of a small lobby. Only the rear room is heated, served by an outer lateral stack. A chapel projects to the right of the front room. Outshots extend across the back of the main block.

Structurally, the main block appears to have been the open hall range of the medieval house, with the eastern crosswing functioning as a solar range with an attached chapel. The hall was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth; the sooted roof truss appears to date from the early 16th century (no earlier than the late 15th century). The solar fireplace and stone window appear contemporary, though the chapel window is earlier. The 17th century saw significant modifications: the left room became the kitchen with a bakehouse behind; the centre became the dining room; and the right served as a parlour. The crosswing layout dates from the late 16th or 17th century. The front room of the crosswing, despite its fine ceiling structure, remains unheated; it once contained an oak-framed screen but this was replaced by a cob wall, probably in the mid-17th century when the lobby partition was erected and the rear room was fitted with a kitchen fireplace and adjacent curing chamber. The first floor level is slightly higher than originally.

The building is two storeys throughout.

Exterior: The main block displays an irregular four-window front of mid-19th-century casements with glazing bars. The passage frontage contains a mid-19th-century six-panel door with overlight, set behind a contemporary flat-roofed timber porch with trellis sides. A secondary doorway (serving the left-end kitchen) has a mid-19th-century door with gabled hood. The main block roof is gable-ended.

The crosswing is disused. Its front end contains a late 16th to early 17th-century oak-framed window, partly blocked, with five lights originally open; the mullions are chamfered externally and ogee-moulded internally. Above it sits a late 17th-century oak two-light window with flat-faced mullions, containing rectangular panes of old leaded glass. The roof above is hipped. The gable-end wall of the chapel features large red sandstone conglomerate buttresses and a late 13th to early 14th-century two-light window of volcanic ashlar. The outer side of the crosswing preserves one light of what was originally a wider window, built of volcanic ashlar with transom and shoulder-headed lights. Additional 17th-century oak windows with chamfered or flat-faced mullions appear elsewhere, some with iron glazing bars and saddle bars. A Tudor arch doorway provides rear access.

Interior: The main block reflects its 19th-century modernisation, though exposed carpentry detail is mostly 17th century. The left-end room exhibits the only exposed crossbeams, which are soffit-chamfered with step stops. The large fireplace has a soffit-chamfered oak lintel. The right room contains a neater fireplace befitting its parlour status. The centre-room fireplace is blocked. Limited access to the main roof revealed a tall side-pegged jointed cruck over the centre room, blackened by smoke from the late medieval open hearth fire. Remarkably, the western outshot lean-to roof is similarly supported on side-pegged jointed crucks.

The disused crosswing contains a partly-blocked late 15th to early 16th-century first-floor fireplace backing onto the main block. One of its volcanic ashlar jambs is visible, showing chamfered edges and a hood corbel; the remainder is obscured by a 19th-century chimneypiece. Despite being unheated, the front room features a fine late 16th to early 17th-century nine-panel ceiling of richly-moulded intersecting beams. A contemporary oak Tudor arch doorway opens into the chapel, which was floored at approximately the same period and has a soffit-chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam. The remainder of the crosswing dates from the mid-17th century. A plain cob-nogged oak-framed partition separates the lobby from the secondary kitchen. The fireplace is of volcanic ashlar with a soffit-chamfered oak lintel. Behind it lies a blocked oven doorway, and to the left is the alcove of a walk-in curing chamber, with a plain-chamfered crossbeam above. The crosswing and chapel roof were replaced in the 19th century, though a couple of cruck posts remain visible in the walls.

This is a complex and significant structure. It may occupy the site of the Domesday manor of Uplonia.