Lower Kingstree

Lower Kingstree is a farmhouse of late 15th or early 16th-century origin, substantially remodelled and extended in the late 16th or early 17th century, with further extension in the 18th or 19th century and some late 20th-century alterations. The left part of the building is constructed of rubble, while the right part combines rubble and cob, rough-plastered and colourwashed. The roof is reed-thatched with gable ends and has high 19th-century brick chimney stacks.

The building follows a three-room and through-passage plan with single-room depth. The right side originally contained an unheated lower room. The hall, heated by a lateral stack at the front, occupies the centre, while the left side contains a large inner room or parlour with its own gable-end stack, its front wall forming an integral line with the hall's lateral stack. The parlour was likely added during the late 16th or early 17th century when a floor was inserted into what was originally an open-hall structure. The roof above the unheated lower right room was originally solid to the apex, though whether it too was open to the roof is uncertain. An outshut containing a kitchen and dairy was added to the rear of the hall and parlour in the late 18th century.

Externally, the building displays two storeys with a fenestration pattern of three windows to two. The windows are mid-19th-century casements with two and three lights, small panes and glazing bars. A mid-19th-century four-panelled door with the top two panes cut away and glazed opens to the right. A slated lean-to at the rear with 19th-century casements includes a 19th-century chimney serving the lean-to space.

The interior retains considerable architectural interest. The lower ground-floor room features a chamfered axial ceiling beam with step and run-out stops; the joists appear original. The through-passage contains chamfered cross-ceiling beams on both sides: to the right above the wall between passage and lower room, and to the left above a plank and muntin screen. A doorway into the lower room has a wooden surround with chamfered cambered head. The screen has been altered with some planks removed and replaced by glass; late 16th or early 17th-century panelling has been set over it, terminating by the front door in a pilaster with richly carved capital. A cambered head doorway opens into the hall, which features a front lateral stack with a massive replaced wooden bressumer ceiling divided into three panels. The bressumer employs intersecting chamfered beams with pyramid stops. Adjacent to the fireplace, a bench on two sides of the hall retains late 16th or early 17th-century moulded panelling on its back. The upper-room doorway has a chamfered frame with ogee stops and a chamfered cross-beam, now plastered over with plastered mouldings. A brick-arched fireplace is present. The first floor is accessed by a 19th-century staircase rising from the through-passage and features elm floorboards. Division into small featureless rooms dates to the 19th century, except the upper room, which retains a small fireplace adjacent to a cupboard with a door made from two panes of 17th-century panelling. A closed truss-wall stands directly above the plank and muntin screen of the through-passage. The roof space is not accessible, but the feet of the trusses visible are straight. The truss over the hall, partly exposed in a partition, appears smoke-blackened and has a mortised collar. The foot of the front principal may have been cut off by the insertion of the hall's lateral stack.