Great Heasley Farmhouse

Great Heasley Farmhouse is a farmhouse of early to mid 17th-century date, probably with later additions and minor mid to late 19th-century alterations. It is a two-storey building constructed with coursed stone rubble to the ground floor and rendered cob to the first floor, with rendered stonework to the rear. The roof is gable-ended with scantle slate covering and rendered stone stacks with weatherings.

The building follows a long 5-room plan, facing south-east towards the farmyard. The plan is complicated but is likely to be interpreted as a much-altered 3-room and cross-passage house, consisting of a central hall with an axial stack to the left, a cross passage, and a former inner room to the right. On this interpretation, the left-hand end room is a later 17th-century addition. The right-hand end room (inner room) was probably rebuilt in the mid to late 17th century and extended by a further one-room addition to the right with an integral end stack (the present kitchen) at the same time, as evidenced by the steeper roof pitch over the right-hand end. A shallow projecting bay marks the probable former inner room and the position of a former doorway (indicated by straight joints), probably added when this end was partly rebuilt and extended in the later 17th century. A one-storey lean-to at the rear of the right-hand end is probably a later addition. An inserted staircase in the cross-passage, probably dating to the mid to late 19th century, may replace an earlier 17th-century insertion. While the house may have late medieval origins, the roof was not accessible at the time of survey in September 1987 and no evidence of a medieval roof was observed in the first-floor rooms. An alternative interpretation suggests the plan may represent a former 17th-century three-room house with an unheated central room, consisting of a central entrance hall with staircase and an unheated stone room behind, flanked by heated end rooms, with a 2-room addition to the left. The presence of 2 staircases suggests the house may latterly have been divided.

The exterior displays a roughly symmetrical front with 5 windows to the first floor and 4 to the ground floor. The fenestration comprises mid to late 19th-century two and three-light wooden casements. The right-hand ground-floor casement has a red-brick segmental-arched head. A roughly central 19th-century six-panelled door features beaded-flush lower panels, raised and fielded middle panels, and glazed upper panels, with a chamfered 19th-century frame and 19th-century bracketed gabled porch. A 20th-century half-glazed door is positioned between the first and second windows from the right, with a bracketed 19th-century gabled porch. A further 20th-century half-glazed door with rectangular overlight is located at the left-hand end. The second ground-floor window from the right (hall window) has been narrowed at some time, as indicated by straight joints. A blocked doorway exists to the right of the right-hand window, also marked by straight joints. A full-height shallow rectangular projection to the left of the right-hand doorway (to the right of the change in roof pitch) probably represents a former entrance bay, with evidence of a blocked former ground-floor doorway indicated by a straight joint.

Internally, the central ground-floor room (hall) contains a pair of roughly-chamfered cambered 17th-century cross beams and joists with beaded edges, all glazed to take later plaster which has since been removed. The fireplace is mostly rebuilt in the 20th century but retains a 17th-century roughly-chamfered cambered wooden lintel. The right-hand ground-floor room (present kitchen) has a 19th-century ovolo-moulded cross beam and wall beams with straight cut stops. The left-hand ground-floor room has a roughly-chamfered cross beam with sawn joists and a 17th-century open fireplace with dressed sandstone splayed jambs, a chamfered wooden lintel with scroll stops, a brick-arched bread oven to the right (now lacking its door), and a blocked segmental brick-arched bread oven positioned low down to the left. The roofspace was not inspected.