Lower Cadham Farmhouse

Lower Cadham Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from the early to mid 17th century, likely with medieval origins, and altered in the 20th century. The construction is of rendered cob and rubble walls, with a gable ended slate roof to the main range and a hipped corrugated iron roof to a projecting front wing. It has rendered axial rubble stacks with a brick shaft, and a brick stack to the right gable end.

The original layout was of a 3-room and through-passage plan, with the lower end to the right. A wing projects from the front of the inner room. The hall stack backs onto the passage, and the lower room has a gable end fireplace. A small rectangular stair projection may have been original at the rear of the hall. The front wing is also likely from the early to mid 17th century, and although now subdivided, it probably began as a single room. Although its original use is unclear, the fine quality moulded mullion window suggests it was originally a parlour wing rather than a service wing. A single-storey 20th-century addition is located behind the inner room, and the lower end of the house has been partially subdivided.

The front elevation is asymmetrical, with four windows and a gabled porch at the centre, and a wing projecting from the left-hand end. The windows are largely 20th-century casements, with a small-paned window above the porch entrance. A 17th-century 4-light ovolo-moulded wooden mullion window is located to the right of the porch, above a wide, richly moulded wooden doorframe. The porch overhangs and has decorative barge-boards with a pendant finial, likely from the 19th century. The wing to the left has two doorways, both with old plank doors, the right-hand one with a 17th-century chamfered doorframe. A partially mutilated 17th-century moulded wooden window frame is on the first floor of the wing, and a complete 2-light mullion window is at the front on the first floor. At the rear of the main range is a shallow rectangular stair projection and a 20th-century single-storey addition.

Inside, the hall has a fireplace with a chamfered wooden lintel and two chamfered axial ceiling beams. A wooden bench with 17th-century panelling is located at the higher end of the hall. The lower room has moulded plaster cornices and a moulded plasterwork beam. A 17th-century chamfered doorframe leads from the passage to the lower end. The front wing, now an outbuilding, has heavy chamfered and hollow step-stopped cross beams. Roof timbers were inaccessible during the survey but may be of interest and potentially provide evidence of medieval origins.