Newhouse Farmhouse Including Barn And Outbuilding Adjoining West

Newhouse Farmhouse including barn and outbuilding adjoining west

This is a farmhouse with adjoining barn and outbuilding, dating to around the mid-17th century with significant alterations and additions made in the early to mid-19th century. The main building is constructed of slate rubble, rendered at the ends and rear, with a roughly chamfered slate plinth along the front. The roof is slate with a gable end to the right and a hipped end to the left.

The building sits on the steep south-facing side of a valley, with the ground falling away at the front and rising steeply at the back. It is two storeys tall with a regular four-window range across the front.

The 17th-century plan is of particular interest. Originally the house comprised three rooms with a cross-passage between the right and centre rooms. To the right is a wide but shallow integral wing containing a framed staircase rising from the back of the passage and a small unheated room. The right-hand lower end room is heated from a gable end stack. The central room (the hall) has a large rear lateral stack which is now blocked but may once have contained an oven. The inner left room may have been a parlour and is heated from a rear lateral stack.

In the early to mid-19th century the plan was substantially rearranged. The lower right room was upgraded to a parlour, the inner left room became the kitchen with an oven in its rear lateral stack, and an unheated outshut was added at the back of the higher end room. The barn and outbuilding were added at the left end probably at the same time. In the 20th century the passage/hall partition was partially removed to form a small entrance lobby, and the space between the rear wing and outshut was filled with a small one-room two-storey addition. In the 1980s the front window of the left-hand room was converted into a French window.

The exterior shows early to mid-19th-century horizontally sliding sashes with glazing bars on the first floor, along with a 19th-century two-type casement to the left, all with slate cills. The ground floor has an early to mid-19th-century 16-pane sash to the right with a flat red brick arch, a replaced centre window now with a 20th-century casement and concrete lintel, and to the left what was probably originally a sash replaced with a late 20th-century French window but retaining its flat red brick arch. A wide fielded six-panel door stands to the right of centre with a 20th-century concrete canopy on brackets. The rear elevation shows a wide hipped two-storey wing to the left and a single-storey outshut to the right with a 20th-century two-storey flat-roof addition between. An early 19th-century fixed-light window with glazing bars lights the stairs in the left-hand wing and features a 17th-century wooden lintel with a stopped chamfer.

The interior retains several 17th-century features. The hall rear lateral fireplace is blocked with a 20th-century brick fireplace, while the right-hand room gable end fireplace has dressed slate jambs, though its timber lintel has been replaced with a granite one. The rear lateral fireplace in the left-hand room (kitchen) has a range inserted, though a bread oven is said to remain behind it. On the first-floor landing and at the bottom of the stairs are two 17th-century chamfered wooden doorframes with true mitres, ogee and hourglass stops. The ground floor has an early 18th-century fielded two-panel door, and the first floor has some circa early 19th-century fielded four-panel doors.

The wide 17th-century framed staircase in the rear wing features square newels with shaped tops, a heavy square handrail and thick square balusters. Apart from these interior features and a few 19th-century plank doors, the interior has limited decorative features. The ceilings are relatively high without exposed ceiling beams. The roof over the main range is 20th-century, but over the rear wing is an earlier structure with collars lapped and pegged to the faces of the principal rafters.

The barn is constructed of slate rubble with a slate half-hipped roof. The ground floor has two shippon (stable) doors and a left door serving the first floor to the right. Until recently the ground at the back stood at a higher level but has since been excavated. The short link building connecting the barn to the west end of the house is two storeys with one 20th-century casement at each floor.

The house is said to have been called the New House in a deed of 1640.