East Aylescott

The property is a farmhouse with a core dating back to the 15th century, significantly remodelled in the 18th century, and with further alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is constructed of rendered stone rubble and cob, with an asbestos slate roof, hipped at the left end. The building features an axial brick stack and a brick stack at the right gable end, both with a toothed course around the capping.

Originally designed with a two-room and through-passage plan, the farmhouse includes a hall to the left, originally open to the roof and heated by a stack backing onto the passage, and a lower end room to the right. The passage contains a straight-run staircase. The hall's roof was likely open until the 18th century when the stack was inserted, and the lower end, including the through passage, was entirely rebuilt. The left end was also modified, with the insertion of the hip, and it's unclear whether the house originally extended further to the left.

The farmhouse presents a four-window facade over two storeys. The windows are largely 20th century, with 2-light casements. The ground floor window to the right has a 2-light casement with 8 panes per light. A 4-light hall window sits to the left of the porch, which has a slated gabled roof and a semi-circular arched doorway with a 20th-century inner door. A bread oven projection with a slate capping is located immediately to the left of the porch. A slate-roofed dairy outshut, partially rebuilt in the 20th century, is situated at the rear of the hall.

Internally, the property has been heavily altered in the 19th and 20th centuries. The hall retains two cross ceiling beams; one is chamfered and unstopped, the other is cased. A chamfered lintel is above the hall fireplace, which includes a bread oven. A creamery recess is found in the rear wall of the hall. The roof trusses over the lower end were replaced in the 18th century with principals of light scantling and lapped pegged collars. The hall roof is of a fine quality, suggesting a formerly substantial farmhouse. This roof incorporates two raised arch-braced cruck trusses, with chamfered archbrace soffits, and short connecting pieces to the morticed and tenoned cranked collars. There's a diagonally threaded ridge purlin and two tiers of threaded purlins, the lower tier chamfered on both upper and lower sides with a single windbrace surviving to the front and two to the rear. All roof members over the hall, including a few surviving rafters, are heavily smoke-blackened. The lower truss is positioned directly in front of the inserted stack. The modification to hipped construction in the 18th century involved sawing off the ends of the original purlins, but the second bay appears truncated by the insertion of a left end gable wall to support the hip, suggesting the house originally may have extended further to the left.