Foxhole Farmhouse

Foxhole Farmhouse is a farmhouse with an adjoining shippon and loft, likely dating back to medieval times, with alterations in the 16th and 17th centuries. The construction is cob on stone rubble footings, with the front plastered and asbestos slate roofing gabled at the ends of the house. The shippon has a bitumen-painted slate roof, hipped at the left end. There are stone stacks, one with a tall shaft on the front hall and another at the right end heating the inner room. The farmhouse likely began as an open hall house, although the existing structure is primarily 16th and 17th century. The late 16th/early 17th century plan consisted of three rooms and a through passage, with a shippon at the lower end and a hall stack on the front, with the inner room potentially unheated. A late 17th century remodelling enlarged the inner room and added a rear right wing containing a stair. The eaves of the main range may have been raised at the same time. The front facade is asymmetrical, with two windows. A 19th-century gabled porch canopy is supported by timber brackets over the cross passage, and a projecting bread oven is to the right of the front door, with regular fenestration of 3-light 19th-century casements, each with three panes. The adjoining shippon has two entrances under timber lintels and a loft doorway. Internally, the house remains largely unchanged since the 19th century. The rear of the passage has been converted to a store room, and the rear doorway is blocked by a small 20th-century bathroom under a lean-to roof. The passage walls are solid to the lower end, with a partition to the hall. The hall contains a late 16th/early 17th century granite fireplace with hollow-chamfered granite and stone rubble jambs, and a hollow-chamfered granite lintel. Two chamfered ceiling beams have ogee stops, and the cross passage ceiling appears to have been jettied into the hall. Two keeping places and a circa early 19th century hall bench remain. A fine circa 1700 open well stair with turned balusters is located in the crosswing, leading to a first-floor landing and two bedrooms, with an apple loft over the passage. The pegged tie beam roof trusses are likely late 17th century and contemporary with the house extension. An ingenious hinged section of the rear door of the hall allowed cider barrels to be brought inside. Foxhole Farmhouse is reported to have been the home of the Soby family, the current occupiers, for over three centuries, and has seen little alteration since the late 17th century.