Preston Farmhouse

Preston Farmhouse

This is a farmhouse dating from the late 16th or early 17th century, with later modifications including an added wing from the 18th or 19th century. It is built of rubble with slate roofs, though the wing has some corrugated asbestos-cement roofing.

The building follows a cross-passage plan and rises to three storeys, with a break in the roof-line to the right of the porch at the fireplace backing onto the cross-passage. A stair turret projects from the kitchen, and there is a two-storey porch. A byre or outbuilding adjoins the left end.

The ground floor contains plain walling corresponding with the outbuilding and a fireplace. Windows include a five-light late casement with wide inner splay, a small two-light window, and to the right of the porch two three-light casements, one serving the set-back end of the wing beneath the same roof slope. The first floor features a half-gable with a small three-light casement with 18th-century glazing bars, a late three-light in the porch, a 20th-century two-light in a robing dormer, and a three-light in a very slight raking dormer in the set-back section. To the left of the porch beyond the half-gable are two rows of pigeon openings and a very small square light set to the eaves. A small arched outer doorway marks the far left above, with garage doors bearing vossoirs to the porch on two stone steps, leading to an inner part-glazed door. The back features a gabled turret with a square light at upper level and a small half-dormer to the right above a lean-to. Left of the stair turret are casements at each level and an external door. The return wing has two two-light windows at each level.

Large rubble chimney stacks with characteristic truncated pyramidal cappings are positioned on the ridge to the left of the kitchen and smoking chamber, and at the junction to the right of the porch. A small brick stack serves the right gable.

Internally, the building is thought at some stage to have been divided into three cottages. The stone-flagged cross-passage has to its left a wide, part-blocked doorway with a heavy chamfered frame leading down steps to a large kitchen, now with an early cement-screeded floor. The kitchen contains a very large bressummer fireplace with a bread oven and a further unexplained chamber in the back wall. To the right of this fireplace is a lofty chamber with a pointed dome formed by oversailing flat slabs, accessible from the byre side; this appears to be a smoking chamber, though there is no sign of smoke blackening. The kitchen ceiling has no visible structural beams. A plank door provides access to the stair.

The room to the right of the passage is raised by steps, necessitated by the ground slope. It has a wide fireplace with a brick segmental lintel replacing a bressummer, set on stone cheeks. No beams are visible. The staircase comprises two steps in the kitchen, then a wooden spiral within the turret.

An unusual element in the plan is the projection of the parlour to the right of the cross-passage, with its outer wall brought flush with the front wall of the porch; this is likely an addition to the original plan but cannot be explained internally.

The roof, inspected in part, has at its lower end three pairs of heavy principals with collars to halved dovetails. The upper end is much restructured and includes three pairs of less heavy principals.

This is an important building, likely to conceal further evidence in the plastered ground floor ceilings.