Lower Farleigh Farmhouse

Lower Farleigh Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from the early 19th century, built of local stone rubble with a slate-hung front. It has a slurried rag slate roof with gabled ends and plastered, coved eaves. Large stone rubble chimney stacks rise from the gable ends, featuring slate drips and tapered tops.

The building was originally planned with a two-room front range, incorporating a central entrance hall containing the staircase. The rooms are heated by gable end stacks; the right-hand room served as a parlour and the left-hand room as a hall or living room, which includes a large fireplace. Behind the left-hand room is a wing housing the kitchen, also with a substantial gable end fireplace and a back staircase. An outbuilding, possibly used for wool storage and with a loft above, extends from the left-hand end and the side of the wing. Access to the loft is provided by external stone stairs in the rear angle, with a small porch at the top of the steps. Later in the 19th century, a dairy wing was added to the back of the right-hand end, and the space between the two wings was subsequently filled in with a flat-roofed addition.

The front of the farmhouse presents a nearly symmetrical three-window facade. The entrance is slightly to the right of centre, with an early 19th-century fielded panel door. The ground floor windows are early 19th-century 16-pane sashes, while the first floor centre window is a 12-pane sash. All windows have slate sills. A lower half-hipped roof covers the outbuilding, its end being flush with the front hall of the house, and it features a small 19th-century, two-light casement with glazing bars on both ground and first floors. The left side of the outbuilding has a 19th-century plank door, sheltered by a slated canopy, and a flight of external stone steps leading to the loft, with a porch at the top.

The rear elevation shows the original kitchen wing to the right, slate-hung on the side and featuring two- and three-light casements with glazing bars, along with a stack at the gable end. The rear wing to the left is a later 19th-century addition; however, the outer wall lacks a straight masonry joint. The interior includes a round arch at the bottom of the staircase with elaborate panelled moulding. Part of the partition between the hall and the left-hand room has been removed. The left-hand room features a large fireplace with an unchamfered timber lintel. The parlour on the right has a circa 1840 chimneypiece. The kitchen features a large fireplace. The farmhouse’s layout is notable for a relatively small dwelling, containing a parlour, a traditional hall/living room, and a kitchen in a rear wing with a back staircase.

Farleigh was a manor recorded in the Domesday Book.