Gorvin Farmhouse

Gorvin Farmhouse

A farmhouse with visible evidence dating to the early to mid 17th century, though it likely has late medieval origins, with a 19th-century addition. The building has plastered stone rubble walls, possibly incorporating some cob, and a gable-ended roof of grouted very small slates. The stacks are rendered brick to the left gable-end and at the front, and rendered rubble with slate dripcourse to the right gable.

The house follows a 3-room-and-through-passage plan with the lower end to the right, heated by a gable-end stack. The hall features a fireplace on its front wall, though this may be an insertion into what was originally an open hall heated by a central hearth—the range is notably low and the roof trusses visible suggest a medieval date. The very different finish of the hall ceiling beams and fireplace lintel suggest they may not have been inserted at the same time. The hall likely adopted its present form by the mid 17th century, incorporating a projecting window bay next to the stack. A remodelling of the higher end to form a parlour in front and staircase wing at the rear also took place in the 17th century, more likely in the second half. By repute there was a plaster crest and date on the first-floor room at this end, suggesting a high-quality chamber. The lower room stack is likely a fairly late insertion, possibly coinciding with the addition of a rear outshut in the 19th century, which superseded the lower room as a dairy.

Externally, the house is 2 storeys with an asymmetrical 4-window front. The main range is very low with dormer windows under nipped roofs on the first floor. The taller section at the left-hand end has a later 19th-century 12-pane horned sash on the first floor and a 9-pane sash below, with a 20th-century glazed door to the right. The main range has early 20th-century 2-light small-paned casements on the first floor. The left-hand part of the front wall projects adjoining the lateral stack with an early 19th-century 20-pane sash on the ground floor. A later 19th-century 6-pane sash is to the right. To the right of centre is a 19th-century lean-to porch with a stone rubble arch and 20th-century part-glazed door behind. The rear elevation has an outshot along the principal range with a gabled wing to the right, which has a 17th-century 2-light chamfered granite mullion stair window.

Internally, the lower room has a 19th-century fireplace. The passage has chamfered and step-stopped joists at a different level to the hall ceiling. The hall features a high-quality 17th-century ceiling of 2 cross beams and joists, all scroll-moulded and unstopped. The hall fireplace has a plain cambered wooden lintel. The inner room has a chamfered half beam and cross-beam unstopped. The staircase is of transitional form, rising around a solid core containing a cupboard rather than an open wall—without balusters or handrail it is undateable but may well be 17th-century.

The roof timbers, of medieval form, consist of substantial straight principals chamfered on their soffits and butt purlins, also chamfered. The collars are hardly visible but likely to be cambered and halved onto the principals. No access to the roof space prevents observation of any surviving smoke-blackening evidence.

This house represents an interesting example of 17th-century development of plan from what was almost certainly a single-storey medieval building.