Billany Farmhouse And Stables Adjoining East North East

Billany Farmhouse and Adjoining Stables

A farmhouse divided into two occupations, with adjoining stables, probably dating to the early to mid 17th century. The building was extended in the late 17th or early 18th century and underwent further alterations in the 19th century.

The house is constructed of rendered limestone rubble with a dry slate roof featuring gable ends. The roof level steps down twice towards the right-hand end, where the section is clad in corrugated asbestos. A projecting rendered stack rises from the left-hand gable end with a rebuilt shaft, while a rear lateral stack (also with rebuilt shaft) and a truncated right-hand gable end with stack are visible.

The building follows a long rectangular single-depth plan of four rooms. The lower right end contains a large fireplace with a cambered chamfered lintel with ogee stops, two stone ovens, and a smoking chamber. This room has a pitched stone floor and a low ceiling with unchamfered beams and joists. The chamber above has a fireplace with a chamfered wooden lintel with ogee stops; the plastered jambs are decorated with sgraffito work showing geometric shapes including squares and circles. The room to the right of centre has a thin chamfered ceiling beam with run-out stops. The higher left end features chamfered cross-beams with stops, including a half-beam with ogee stops. Behind the centre and left end of the range are circa 18th and 19th-century service outshuts: a kitchen to the left and a dairy to the right, with a passage between. The passage partition contains an 18th-century two-panel door.

The roof over the lower right end contains four trusses with clean and straight principals, morticed and halved and pegged at the apex with slightly cambered and chamfered collars. There are two tiers of threaded purlins and a diagonal ridge-piece. The later, probably 18th-century roof over the centre and higher left end has straight principals with lapped and pegged collars.

The exterior presents two storeys with an asymmetrical seven-window frontage stepping down to the right. Windows are late 19th-century two, three, and four-light casements with glazing bars, some with slate dripmoulds. A gabled half-dormer sits to the right of centre. A doorway to the left of centre has a large 20th-century gabled wooden porch. A 17th-century ground floor window at the front of the lower right end has a wooden ovolo-moulded frame of two lights with true mitres; external stone stairs to the right lead to a loft doorway with a plank door. Various outshuts with catslide roofs are located at the rear.

The stables, set back and adjoining the lower right end, were added in the circa early to mid 19th century. They are constructed of local limestone rubble with a gable-ended corrugated asbestos roof and comprise two storeys. The ground floor has two windows and a central doorway, all with segmented stone arches. A loft doorway sits at the centre of the first floor.