Thelbridge Farmhouse And Adjoining Front Garden Walls And Former Pigstys

Thelbridge Farmhouse and Adjoining Front Garden Walls and Former Pigstys

This is a farmhouse with adjoining garden walls and former pigstys, dated 1651 and substantially remodelled and enlarged in the mid-19th century. The main building is rendered, probably over coursed stone rubble, with the mid-19th century additions built in uncoursed stone rubble with red brick dressings and rendered to the front. The roof over the main range is of hipped 20th-century slate, while gable-ended rear wings have scantle-slated roofs with a catslide roof over the dairy outshut. There is a brick axial stack and a stone end stack.

The building follows a mid-19th century three-room plan range facing south-west, with ground level sloping to the right. The layout consists of a central kitchen with a front door, a parlour to the right with an axial stack between the two, and an unheated store room to the left with a loft approached at first-floor level from the bank at the left-hand end. A rear corridor with a mid-19th century staircase in a projection at the left-hand end connects to an entrance at the right-hand end with a porch dated 1651. A one-room plan 17th-century wing projects at right angles to the rear of the right-hand end, with an integral end stack. A 19th-century L-plan lean-to outshut occupies the angle of the rear wing, with the section to the side of the rear wing formerly serving as a dairy. 19th-century former pigstys adjoin the gable end of the rear wing. The main range is two storeys with one-storey outshuts. The main range is probably a mid-19th century rebuilding or remodelling of an earlier, possibly 17th-century range, with the rear wing and porch appearing to be a surviving fragment of the earlier house. Mid-19th century stone walls enclose the front garden to the south-west.

The exterior features a plinth and a symmetrical five-bay front with mid-19th century boxed margin-light sashes with segmental heads and stone cills. A central first-floor blind window is present, and the second ground-floor window from the left is a small-paned two-light wooden casement. There is a central 19th-century plank door with beaded wooden frame and segmental head, with a late-19th or early-20th century gabled wooden porch. A 19th-century plank door in the left-hand end bay has a beaded wooden frame and segmental head. External brick steps lead up to a first-floor doorway in the left-hand end wall with a 19th-century plank door, brick dressings, and wooden lintel. Segmental-headed blind windows appear on each floor of the right-hand (south-east) end wall.

The right-hand (south-east) side of the rear wing features two first-floor 19th-century three-light small-paned wooden casements and a ground-floor mid-19th century segmental-headed tripartite sash. A doorway to the left has a mid-17th century nail-studded door with moulded small panels (the top three glazed) and a 17th-century mitred moulded wooden frame. A gabled porch with a plinth and depressed archway contains a chamfered square datestone above inscribed "W I M 1651". A projecting semi-circular bread oven at the rear gable end has a stone-slated conical roof with weathering in the wall above. A pair of 19th-century lean-to pigstys to the left each have a plank door. The dairy outshut at the rear (north-west) of the rear wing has two-light wooden casements with wooden lintels, with the window in the end wall featuring internal wrought-iron bars. An outshut at the rear of the main range has a plank door.

Interior details include a central ground-floor kitchen with a large open fireplace featuring mid-19th century architrave and bracketed mantelshelf, with a bench along the front wall and cream hob in the rear wall. The parlour to the right of the kitchen retains complete mid-19th century fixtures and fittings, including a fireplace architrave with chamfered edges and roundels at the corners (with a later 19th-century cast-iron grate with tiled reveals), an ovolo-moulded elliptical-arched recess to the right of the fireplace, a cupboard in the opposite wall, a dado rail, and two ovolo-moulded elliptical-arched recesses flanking a four-panelled door with ovolo-moulded reveals. A mid-19th century winder staircase at the rear of the kitchen has stick balusters, a turned newel post, ramped handrail, and a plank door at the foot. Mid-19th century four-panelled doors are found throughout the main range. The ground-floor room in the rear wing has two 17th-century chamfered cross beams and a blocked fireplace. The dairy has quarry-tiled floors, slate shelves, and a barred window. The left-hand first-floor room is unplastered. The roof over the main range is 19th-century with machine-sawn bolted king-post trusses. The roof over the rear wing dates to the 17th century and consists of three trusses with straight principals.