Rendle's Down Farmhouse and Attached Outbuilding

Rendle's Down Farmhouse and attached outbuilding is a farmhouse dating back to the 15th century, with significant remodelling around 1590. The farmhouse retains the original hall and lower end of a hall house, alongside a parlour end built or rebuilt around 1590. It is constructed of colourwashed roughcast over coursed slatestone rubble and cob, with a gabled artificial slate roof. A stone stack stands at the left end, and another is positioned centrally on the front wall. The building is situated on a slope, with the parlour located at the traditionally higher end.

The original house comprised an open hall to the left of a through-passage and a lower room to the right. The lower end was likely originally floored, after which the hall was floored over and given a lateral stack around 1590. The two-storey outbuilding to the right is of similar materials and date.

The farmhouse is two storeys high, with a four-window facade. A 20th-century door is on the left, and a late 19th-century plank door is on the right. The ground floor windows are mostly late 19th-century two-light casements and a one-light casement, with a horizontal sliding sash. The first floor has 20th-century three-light casements to the right and several late 16th-century two- and three-light wood-mullioned windows with leaded-lights to the left (parlour end). The rear elevation features a 19th-century plank door, a horizontal sliding sash, and a small, late 16th-century two-light wood-mullioned stair-light with original glass set in octagonal-shaped leaded lights.

Inside, the through-passage is flanked by plastered partitions beneath beams, with one chamfered beam projecting as a slight internal jetty into the hall on the left. The hall has a blocked fireplace and late 16th-century ovolo-moulded beams. Two 15th-century raised crucks are visible on the first floor, one of which is chamfered. The late 16th-century parlour end contains a late 19th-century staircase and adjoining partition. A first-floor room in this section features fine plasterwork dating to around 1590, including an overmantel with vine trails, moulded cornices, a frieze with rosettes and reversed scroll decoration, and a ceiling with scrolled and oak-leaf decoration set amongst ribbed strapwork, culminating in a central pendant. The outbuilding’s plank door has a late 16th-century ovolo-moulded wood architrave with jewel and ogee stops.