Chapple Farmhouse

Chapple Farmhouse is a building of probable 16th-century origins, largely remodelled and extended in 1663, as indicated by a datestone. It is constructed of rendered stone rubble and cob, with a slate roof and gable ends. The farmhouse has an axial brick stack serving a chamber over the inner room, a brick stack at the lower end, a stone rubble lateral rear hall stack, heightened in brick with a tapered cap, and a lateral rear brick stack serving the inner room, featuring 19th-century clay pots ornamented with incised foliage. The original layout was a three-room and through-passage plan with an additional room at the left end, likely a 17th-century addition possibly used for farm storage. A 19th-century gable-ended dairy wing is set at right angles to the rear of the lower end, forming an L-shaped plan.

The farmhouse has two storeys and a five-window front. The windows are mostly 19th or 20th century. The upper storey has 2-light casements, three with six panes per light to the right and three with three panes per light to the left, with a 20th-century window at the left end above French windows. The ground floor has 3-light casements with six panes per light. A four-panelled door, with the upper panels glazed, leads to the through-passage. A datestone, reading "R 1663 C," is positioned near the eaves. A 19th-century 4-light hall casement with three panes per light is present at the rear.

Inside, the lower end features a high fireplace lintel with a chamfer and a large clay bread oven set into the rear of the hearth. A former newel staircase has been replaced with a straight flight. A narrow bay behind the stack at first-floor level, above the bread oven, may have originally contained a stairway to garrets. A chamfered bressumer and 2-cross ceiling beams, featuring hollow step stops, are present in the lower end room. An ovolo-moulded door surround with scroll-stopped durns is located between the through-passage and the lower end. A plank and muntin screen with seven planks, chamfered muntins and a straight-headed doorway is found between the hall and through-passage. A four-panelled door provides access to the rear of the through-passage. The hall ceiling beams and fireplace lintel have been covered in the 20th century, but a surviving ovolo-moulded door surround with a triangular prism and scroll-stopped durns separates the hall from the inner room. A 17th-century chamfered door surround marks the axial partition of the inner room, which contains a good 17th-century staircase with a moulded handrail, turned balusters and larger newels with compressed finials. Two 17th-century trusses with lap-jointed collars remain in the upper end, with the rest of the roof structure replaced during the 20th century.

The 1663 datestone is set into the stonework above the original cob wall height, suggesting that the eaves were raised and the original roof structure replaced during the 1663 remodelling. In the late 19th century, the farmhouse was the residence of the Fishley family of potters, and the chimney pots were a product of their potteries.