Holwell Farmhouse

Holwell Farmhouse

A farmhouse dating from the early 17th century, extended and probably remodelled in the early 18th century, and modernised in the earlier 20th century. The building is constructed from slatestone rubble walls with a slate roof, gabled to the left end and hipped to the right. Brick stacks are positioned at the left and right-hand ends and at the end of the left-hand rear wing.

The original plan comprised a 3-room-and-through-passage arrangement, though the lower end was truncated probably earlier in the 20th century when the passage became a leanto. The hall stack backs onto the passage with a hall bay in front of it; the inner room stack may be a later insertion. In the early 18th century a wing was added behind the hall containing a staircase with an adjoining parlour on the ground floor and a good quality chamber above. Another rear wing, also probably of the 18th century, was built at the higher end as a dairy. The rear of the hall was partitioned into a passage either when the stairwing was added or subsequently.

The exterior presents 2 storeys with an asymmetrical 2-window front. There are 3 windows below with a projecting hall bay at the centre. To the right on each floor is a mid to later 20th-century casement without glazing bars. The 2-storey hall bay has a hipped roof with an early 20th-century 4-pane sash on the first floor and an early 19th-century 16-pane hornless sash below, which has a stone hoodmould over it. To the left the front wall continues in the same line as the bay up to first floor level with a catslide roof extending down to it, featuring a similar 16-pane sash with a dripcourse above. Projecting slightly forward to the left is the porch with the former passage in a leanto behind it. The porch has a square rubble doorway at the front with chamfered sides. The original studded plank door is behind it in an ovolo-moulded wooden doorframe. A small 20th-century brick leanto has been built against the right-hand end of the house with a plank door on its inner face. At the rear are 2 parallel gabled rear wings.

The interior contains surprisingly good quality features of the early 18th century. In the rear wing is an open-well 18th-century staircase with an open string, turned balusters, square panelled newels, a ramped handrail and dado panelling. Above these stairs is a contemporary moulded rib plaster ceiling of simple design. Adjoining the stairs in the wing on the ground floor is a room with complete 18th-century fielded panelling incorporating a china cupboard with a round-arched head and pilasters. The room above also has similar complete panelling with a bolection-moulded chimneypiece and a coved plaster ceiling. The room over the hall has an 18th-century moulded plaster cornice. The back stairs at the higher end of the house are probably of a similar date and have splat balusters. The dairy wing has rough unstopped ceiling beams. The roof over this range features 18th or early 19th-century A-frames with lapped and pegged collars.

This is a particularly interesting farmhouse because, unlike others in the area, it did not undergo a major 18th-century rebuild or refronting, but instead received a rear extension and good quality internal refitting, with the 17th-century front largely unaltered. It was evidently once a larger and more important house and has suffered somewhat of a decline, but the quality of its internal fittings belies its modest external appearance.