Holtgate

Holtgate is a farmhouse, now a private dwelling, demonstrating complex multi-phase development. Probably built in the early 16th century, it was remodelled in the late 16th or early 17th century. The lower end was rebuilt and extended in the late 18th or early 19th century, with some 20th-century alterations. The building is constructed of rendered stone rubble and cob beneath a half-hipped thatch roof. It features a stone rubble rear lateral hall stack with tapered cap and a brick stack at the front end.

The original plan was probably a three-room layout with a through-passage. The inner room at the left end was apparently demolished, and a single-room extension was added to the right end in the late 18th or early 19th century. An unheated gabled rear service wing was added to the rear of the lower end in the 19th century. A staircase was inserted running up the rear wall of the lower end in the 20th century; the original stair position is unclear.

The hall to the left of the through-passage was originally open to the roof, with particularly clear evidence of a jettied chamber over the screens passage. The light smoke-blackening confined to the roof structure between the jetty partition and the closed truss over the lower side of the through-passage, compared with heavier smoke-blackening over the hall, indicates the jetty is integral with the original open hall. Smoke permeated from the hall's open hearth through the jetty partition. The hall was ceiled in the late 16th or possibly 17th century. In the 18th century the lower end was entirely rebuilt and an additional single-room range was added at the right end, with the inner room to the left of the hall demolished.

The building is two storeys with a four-window range. Windows include two two-light casements with three panes per light at the left end, a two-light casement with four panes per light above a hip roof to a 19th-century porch with 19th-century plank door, and 19th-century three-light casements with six panes per light on each floor to the right. That to the ground floor appears inserted in a former lateral stack heating the lower end, though no evidence survives internally. There is 20th-century fenestration and a lean-to at the right end.

The interior retains very complete and high-quality interiors to the hall and through-passage. Plank and muntin screens survive to both sides of the passage. The hillside screen is eight planks wide with stop-chamfered muntins on both sides and a central segmental arched chamfered door surround. The head beam is chamfered with returns at each end. The screen to the lower side is six planks wide with muntins chamfered on the passage side only, incorporating two doorways. The rear doorway is infilled with an inserted muntin and plank with segmental head. The centre doorway has a gentle ogee head. Both have chamfered surrounds. The head beam is particularly elaborate with triple roll mouldings between larger rolls. The through-passage retains its cobbled floor. Stop-chamfered joists serve the passage and jetty. The jetty beam unusually has hollow step-stopped chamfers at regular intervals, with small mortices in the front face occurring at each end of the four breaks, possibly indicating that the studs of the jetty partition were later rehoused in mortices on the upper face of the jetty beam.

A single wide chamfered axial ceiling beam with step stops at the jetty end spans the hall. The hall fireplace has a chamfered lintel with a pyramid stop to the right end only. A stone lintel infills a probable former smoking chamber to the right, with a panelled cupboard door below the jetty.

Two raised cruck trusses span the hall and lower side of the passage, the latter closed to collar level with a mud and stud partition. The principal feet are not visible. The trusses have morticed and tenoned collars and carry two tiers of threaded purlins and ridge purlins. All roof members, including battens, rafters and underside of thatch, are smoke-blackened to the hall side of the closed truss, with a definitive break occurring above the jetty partition, which was removed above first floor ceiling level. Smoke-blackening is much more pronounced on the hall side. With the 18th-century rebuilding of the lower end, the roof structure above is clean, with straight pegged principals and lapped collars. A hip was introduced at the hall end at this time.

Holtgate is a particularly interesting example of a farmhouse retaining clear evidence of complex phased development and exceptionally high-quality interior carpentry detail.