Wick Farmhouse

Wick Farmhouse

Farmhouse with probable early 15th century origins, remodelled and extended in 1638. The building is constructed of rendered stone rubble and cob with a thatch roof. Rendered stacks sit at each gable end, and there is a tall lateral hall stack with offsets and clay pot. A half-hipped thatch roof covers the rear dairy wing. The house follows a 3-room and through-passage former open-hall plan, with 2 adjoining service wings to the rear of the inner room and hall (the latter added in the 17th century, the former possibly 18th century). A single-storey 19th-century kitchen wing extends to the rear of the lower end. The building is 2 storeys with a 5-window range. The fenestration is principally 19th century, comprising 3-light casements to each floor except for two 2-light casements above and to the right of the doorway, all with 6 panes per light to the upper storey and 8 panes per light to the ground floor. There is a 20th-century porch with a hipped slate roof and a 4-panelled inner door. The rear upper storey of the main range retains one 2-light and one 4-light 17th-century chamfered timber mullion window.

The interior contains good quality early 17th-century fittings that largely belie the earlier origins. The lower end fireplace features dressed stone jambs, a large brick bread oven, and a chamfered bar-stopped lintel with a flagstone floor. A small 2-light chamfered mullion window opens to the rear. The hall and through passage are divided by a plank and muntin screen 7 panels wide (with renewed rear end panels), featuring scroll-stopped chamfered muntins with scratch mouldings on the hall side. The hall has stop-chamfered cross ceiling beams. The fireplace lintel is ovolo-moulded with scroll stops, set under a higher chamfered lintel with diagonal stops, and has dressed stone jambs. The doorway between hall and inner room has an ovolo-moulded surround with bar-scroll stops to each side. The inner room fireplace has dressed stone jambs and an ovolo-moulded scroll-stopped lintel bearing the carved initials and date RW 1638 EW. An ovolo-moulded door surround opens to the doorway between inner room and service wing. A staircase to the rear of the hall, probably early 18th century, retains original wooden treads, a moulded handrail, and turned newels. The dairy wing features a stop-chamfered cross-beam. An ovolo-moulded door surround at the head of the stairs has triple-decoration above scroll-stopped durns. The chamber over the inner room has a chamfered bar-stopped door surround and a scroll-stopped ovolo-moulded fireplace lintel. Sections of moulded plasterwork cornice run to each end of the chamber over the hall, to an adjoining small dressing room, and to a rear passageway with a stop-chamfered doorway at the end to the chamber over the lower end. Most window openings retain their interior timber sills.

The roof structure is particularly impressive and largely intact. Over the hall and lower end is a primitive probable early 15th-century roof structure consisting of 3 raised cruck trusses with principals virtually square in section, a square-set ridge purlin of Alcock type H apex, and 2 tiers of purlins unusually resting only on the backs of the trusses. All roof members, including the underside of the thatch, are thickly encrusted with soot. There is rare surviving evidence of a louvre with a short timber board slightly raked to the main pitch of the roof on the front side, set close to the ridge. The rafters directly opposite on the rear side have been replaced, suggesting the louvre originally straddled the ridge. A closed cob partition between hall and inner room rises to the apex of the roof and is smoke-blackened on the hall side. Although the truss over the inner room was replaced in the 17th century with one principal formerly carrying threaded purlins and ridge purlin (with the other principal replaced in the 20th century), it is highly probable the house was originally open to the roof from end to end, with the inner room ceiled first, followed by the hall and lower end in the mid to late 17th century—a process that would account for the extremely pronounced smoke-blackening at this end. Over the rear dairy wing are 2 17th-century trusses with 2 tiers of trenched purlins, a diagonally-set ridge purlin with morticed and tenoned collars.

This is a particularly impressive farmhouse with an unusual and largely intact medieval roof structure and fine quality 17th-century work.