Sheldon Farmhouse

Sheldon Farmhouse is a former farmhouse, now used as a house and office, with origins dating back to the 16th century or earlier. The lower section of the house was rebuilt in the late 19th century. The main block is constructed of whitewashed cob and stone with a thatched roof, gabled at the left end and half-hipped at the right end; it has a left-hand stack and an axial stack with brick shafts. The late 19th-century block has a slate roof, gabled ends, and end stacks.

The house has evolved over time, currently presenting a west-facing three-room and cross-passage plan, with a hall stack backing onto the passage. The lower end was rebuilt in the late 19th century as a south-facing crosswing. Originally, the house may have been an open hall with a small ancillary room, remodelled in the late 16th or early 17th century, with an early 17th-century two-storey porch added. The original lower end is said to have been destroyed by a fire.

The exterior features an asymmetrical two-and-a-half window front, with the end wall of the late 19th-century block to the right. There’s a large gabled two-storey porch on timber posts with a cobbled floor and an ovolo-moulded lintel over the inner doorway. Windows are generally timber casements with glazing bars, with a metal-framed ground-floor window on the left and a 16th or 17th-century chamfered mullioned stair window to the left of the porch. The south elevation of the 19th-century block is symmetrical with three bays, featuring large timber sashes and a central doorway. Single-storey rear lean-tos with corrugated iron roofs extend from the main block.

Inside, the granite backing to the hall stack is visible in the passage, which has been subdivided at the rear. The hall features a good granite fireplace with chamfered jambs and lintel, and a winder stair constructed of timber baulks adjacent to the stack. A plank and muntin screen separates the hall from the inner room, with a shouldered doorframe (now blocked). There’s a 16th-century doorframe to a rear outshut, and a plastered over crossbeam. The inner room also has a smaller granite fireplace. On the first floor, the timber-framed room over the porch retains remnants of a decorated plaster frieze dating to approximately the early 17th century, and some plaster heads on the west wall.

The roof comprises two distinct constructions: a lower roof structure over the lower end of the stack, showing no clear signs of smoke staining, and a higher roof, likely dating to the late 17th century, with halved pegged collars above the hall and inner room. The building has group value with the surrounding farmbuildings and chapel.