Buckinghams Leary Farmhouse

Farmhouse. Dating to the early 16th century, with possible earlier origins, the farmhouse was probably extended in the late 16th century and remodelled in the early 17th century with a further extension to the rear in the 18th century. A cottage was added to the right end in 1858. The original section is constructed of stone rubble and cob, with a thatch roof featuring a brick stack at the left gable end and a front lateral hall stack, largely rebuilt in brick. The rear 18th-century extension has a half-hipped thatch roof, while the 1858 cottage addition is of stone rubble with a slate roof and a brick stack at the right end.

The original range comprises a former open hall to the right, originally heated by a front lateral stack with a stair turret to the rear, and possibly incorporating a former through-passage to its right. The original front doorway has been blocked, and a window inserted. The entrance is now to a large room to the left of the hall, likely a 17th-century addition, containing an internal winder staircase to the rear wall and extended slightly at the left end when the gable end stack was inserted in the 19th century. A short, two-story, right-angled 18th-century extension is at the rear left end, accessible by a secondary flight of stairs incorporated into the hall stair turret. A dairy outshut is located to the rear of the left end.

The farmhouse has two storeys. The earlier range has a four-window front, with 2-light casement windows. 2-light casements and a porch with a lean-to roof are to the left, and three 3-light casements are to the right; the front wall has been built out in line with the hall stack. The 1858 addition features two 2-light casements above a gabled slate roof with a porch containing a small datestone inscribed ‘1858’ and a plank door, and a 16-pane sash window with roughly dressed stone voussoirs.

Inside, the left-hand room of the earlier range has wide, chamfered axial ceiling beams. The hall has 2 ovolo-moulded cross ceiling beams, with a thinner, hollow-step stopped chamfered bressumer at the left end and a similar beam of lighter scantling, chamfered on the lower side only, towards the right-hand end, possibly indicating a former hall/through-passage partition. Massive cob walls rise to the apex of the roof at each end of the hall. A raised cruck truss with a cambered collar is visible over the hall, the upper floor partition retaining a 17th-century chamfered door surround with scroll-stopped durns. The cruck feet are set low in the walls, suggesting the area was formerly open to the roof. The original roof structure largely survives intact over the left-hand room, with no evidence of smoke-blackening.