Bickham

Farmhouse, probably 17th century with a circa 1850 addition at the south end. The main structure is built of slate rubble stone, while the 1850 addition is rendered and lined out. Both have slate roofs. The rear north wing features a gable end, and the 1850 addition has a hipped slate roof with deep eaves, with slates coated in bitumen and moulded cast iron gutters. There is a large rendered axial stack over the north wing; the rear lateral stacks have been truncated. The rear stacks of the mid-19th-century addition have also been truncated.

The original north wing probably had a two or three-room plan with through passage, with the lower end to the left (south). The right end may have been the inner room or a later addition, indicated by a straight masonry joint at the front east; in either case, its large rear lateral stack suggests this end was converted into a kitchen. Probably during the 19th century, the higher end was partitioned and another stack was inserted into the passage with back-to-back fireplaces, one heating the newly formed centre room and the other heating the lower room. Around 1850 the lower left end of the lower room was truncated and a spacious two-room south-facing block with a central entrance hall was built at approximately 80 degrees to the old range, which was relegated to a rear service wing. Although the 1850 block is symmetrical, the right-hand room is smaller, and symmetry is achieved by placing the doorway to the left of the stair hall with a classical porch in the middle of the facade.

The building is two storeys. The circa 1850 addition facing south has a symmetrical three-window front with 16-pane sashes, with a 12-pane sash on the centre first floor; all were replaced in the 1980s. The central doorway has a porch with large rendered Doric columns and an altered entablature, with pilasters either side of the doorway, a rectangular fanlight with glazing bars, and a 19th-century six-panel door with the top four panels glazed. The rear wing projects at an angle of approximately 80 degrees. It has a four-window east front; the first-floor window to the left of centre is blocked and has a 19th-century panelled door below with a late 19th-century glazed porch. The windows are mid to late 19th-century three-light casements with glazing bars and flat stone arches, except for the ground-floor window to the right, which has a wooden lintel and 20th-century casement. The back (west) of the rear (north) wing has a truncated projected lateral stack to the left with a stair turret to its right, and a 19th-century single-storey outshut across most of the west side of this wing.

Interiorly, the north (back) room of the rear wing has two roughly chamfered ceiling beams without stops and a large lateral fireplace with a very large chamfered slate lintel. A triangular recess is set in the side of the fireplace, and a separate shaft at the back of the stack may have been a flue for a curing chamber, no longer extant. The chamber above has a small semi-circular recessed fireplace with a slate lintel. In the mid-19th-century addition, the left-hand room has a moulded plaster cornice and a black marble chimneypiece with an iron grate with decorative tiles either side. The smaller right-hand room has a 20th-century brick fireplace and moulded plaster cornice. The central entrance hall has a moulded plaster cornice with a centrepiece of carved wooden acanthus leaves and an open well staircase with an open string with scrolled tread ends, stick balusters, and a moulded mahogany handrail ramped up to turned newels and wreathed over the curtail. Most of the 19th-century joinery survives, including six-panel doors and some of the internal window shutters. The roof over the rear north wing has 20th-century bolted softwood trusses.