East Burne Farmhouse

East Burne Farmhouse

Farmhouse, dating from the late 15th century and substantially remodelled in the early to mid 16th century and early to mid 17th century. It was extended and altered during the 18th and/or 19th centuries. The building is constructed of roughcast cob and stone rubble with a slate roof featuring gabled ends. Two lateral stacks with tall rendered shafts rise from the front wall.

The house follows a three-room and through-passage plan, with the lower end positioned to the right. Both the hall and lower end room are heated from lateral stacks at the front, while the unheated inner room contains a stair turret at the back. A single-storey outshut runs across the back, with another outshut and loft above at the lower right-hand end.

The building's development shows evidence of successive phases of flooring and subdivision. Originally, at least the hall and probably the lower end were open to the roof. A chamber over the inner room may have been an original feature, jettied about 6 inches into the hall. When a chamber was created over the lower end, it was jettied over the passage into the hall. The lateral stack at the front of the hall may have been built when the lower end floor was inserted, though it likely predates the flooring of the hall itself in the early to mid 17th century. Around the same time the hall was floored, the doorway between the hall and inner room was widened, probably to allow access to a staircase inserted at the back of the inner room, which would have made the earlier newel staircase redundant. The rear outshut and the one at the lower right-hand end are probably 18th or 19th-century additions. In the 19th century, a straight staircase was inserted under the jetty at the lower end of the hall, rising from the back of the passage. Another staircase was added at the rear of the lower end room, suggesting the house may have been divided at that time before being reunited. The putative early to mid 17th-century staircase in the inner room was probably removed in the 19th century.

The exterior is two storeys with an asymmetrical four-window range featuring 20th-century sashes and casements. The ground floor and right side of the first floor have four-pane sashes, while the remaining first-floor windows are small two-light casements. The through-passage doorway to the right of centre has a 19th-century plank door with a lean-to slate canopy on wooden cantilevers. A 20th-century glazed door has been inserted into the front of the inner room to the left. At the lower right-hand end is a lean-to single-storey outshut with an attic, featuring an old plank door and a 20th-century casement above. The rear elevation shows a rounded projecting stair turret to the right; the remainder of the rear wall is concealed by a single-storey outshut with an asbestos tile lean-to roof. Attached to this outshut at the lower right-hand end is a 19th-century outbuilding at right angles, now a garage at ground floor level with dwelling accommodation above.

Internally, the hall contains jetties with curved and chamfered joist ends; the higher end has diagonal stops and the lower end has butt stops. The higher end jetty is only about 6 inches deep, set on a solid wall between the hall and inner room, while the lower end jetty extends about 3 feet deep with joists stopped on the soffit, indicating the passage partition has been moved to make it narrower. The hall has a chamfered cross-beam and joists, all with bar stops, and a similarly stopped chamfered lintel to a former opening in the wall between the hall and inner room. The hall fireplace in the front lateral stack has a high-set chamfered timber lintel with indeterminate (possibly run-out) stops, resting on granite corbels with curved ends; it is now blocked with a 20th-century fireplace. The inner room contains heavy unchamfered joists and a blocked stair-turret at the back. The passage has chamfered joists and a stud and plaster partition on the lower side. The lower end room has a chamfered cross-beam with straight-cut stops and a fireplace in the front stack with a mid-19th-century moulded chimneypiece and cast-iron grate.

The roof was probably replaced in the 19th century with elm nailed principal rafters, except for what remains in the partitions at the higher and lower ends of the hall chamber. The lower partition over the jetty has wattle infill and what appears to be smoke-blackening on the lower side of the rear principal.