Bowhayes Farmhouse

Bowhayes Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from the late 17th century to early 18th century, which was thoroughly refurbished and enlarged in the late 19th century. It features plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks topped with 19th and 20th-century brick, and a thatch roof. The house has a four-room plan and faces north, built across the hillslope. Originally, it had a three-room plan with a lobby entrance. The two larger heated rooms are located at the right end, with an axial stack between them serving back-to-back fireplaces and the front lobby entrance. There was an unheated room to the left. In the late 19th century, a fourth room was added at the left end, along with an axial stack serving the third room. During this time, the third room was enlarged at the expense of the adjoining original room, and a corridor was built along the front of this room from the lobby to the new stairs.

The exterior features a regular but not symmetrical five-window front with 20th-century casements that include glazing bars; the central windows are blind. The front doorway, which is the original lobby entrance, is located to the right of center and contains a 20th-century door with a contemporary porch. The roof has low half hips at each end.

The interior has largely been modernized in the late 19th and 20th centuries, with little original carpentry exposed. The right end room shows no carpentry detail, and its fireplace is blocked. The 19th-century stair rising to the rear of the stack is likely a rebuild of the original. The room to the right of center has an axial beam with its soffit cut back. The fireplace in this room was blocked in the 19th century, but the original was temporarily exposed in 1987, revealing it to be very large with an oak-framed surround, although one timber jamb had been removed. The roof space is inaccessible, but the bases of straight principals are visible over the original house, with their scantling large enough to suggest that the roof is supported by late 17th to early 18th-century A-frame trusses.