Cleave Farmhouse

Cleave Farmhouse is an early 16th-century house, with alterations and an addition from the 17th century and modernisation in the late 20th century. It is constructed of rendered cob and rubble walls, with a hipped thatched roof, gabled to the rear wing. There are two rendered brick stacks—one axial to the main range and one at the gable end of the rear wing. The original plan was a 3-room-and-through-passage layout, with a hall and an inner room open to the roof and a central hearth within the hall. The house was floored around the early 17th century, and a hall stack was inserted backing onto the passage; the lower room to the left may also have been lengthened at this time. A single-room heated rear wing was added behind the inner room, also probably in the early 17th century. In the 20th century, a partition at the lower side of the passage was removed, and the main entrance was created directly into the hall. The front facade is asymmetrical, with three windows featuring late 20th-century casements of 1 and 2 lights, with top opening lights. A thatched roofed porch, containing a panelled door, is located to the right of centre. The rear wing extends behind the right-hand end. The hall contains chamfered cross beams with ogee stops. The fireplace has a moulded wooden lintel. The lower room has chamfered cross beams with hollow step stops, and the inner room has a chamfered axial beam. A 16th-century 6-light unglazed wooden mullion window, featuring diamond-section mullions, is located on the rear wall of the inner room. The rear wing has chamfered cross beams with straight-cut stops and a small fireplace with a chamfered and stopped wooden lintel. Two 17th-century chamfered wooden doorframes with old studded plank doors survive on the first floor. The earliest roof structure is visible over the inner room. This includes one smoke-blackened truss featuring a morticed curved collar and diagonal ridge. Sooted rafters also remain, along with a short blackened post in the solid wall at the lower end of the inner room. Above the lower end is a 17th-century roof with three straight principals, trenched purlins, and dovetail-halved collars. Over the rear wing, one cruck form truss survives with trenched purlins; however, a lack of access to the roof space prevents further examination.