Crooke'S Farmhouse

Crooke's Farmhouse is a substantial farmhouse dating back to the 15th century, with significant alterations in the early 17th and early 19th centuries. The building has an irregular L-shaped plan and a four-window front, originally two storeys high with attics. The exterior is finished in roughcast rendering, with a tiled roof and painted brick to the left return.

A wide, hipped porch, single-storey in height, is prominent at the front. It features Doric pillars on square bases at each corner, pilasters to the rear, a frieze, and a moulded cornice, with access provided by two stone steps. Behind the porch is a six-panel front door, glazed to the top four panels and flush below, with sidelights matching the door’s reeded frame, corner decorations, and a segmental fanlight above. Flanking the entrance are wide, flat-headed double French doors with matching fixed lights above, with marginal lights to the sides on the right and three equal panes to each door on the left. A frame for a dummy door is positioned to the left. The first floor has four sash windows with flat heads and marginal lights to the sides. The roof is hipped, sloping down to lower eaves on the returns than on the front, with gable detailing on the left and five diagonally-set flues above a chimney to the right of the dummy door, the upper part of which is missing. A stone base to the chimney is visible on the right return, also externally.

The interior contains six-panel doors with reeded surrounds, plain square corner blocks, and panelled reveals, particularly noticeable in the entrance hall and landing. A moulded cornice runs through the entrance hall and adjoining front rooms, with reeded surrounds to the fireplaces, including a semi-circular recess behind a room on the right, with an arched head and surrounding detail matching the fireplaces. A cellar is located beneath the left-hand ground floor room, accessed via a scratch-moulded door. On the ground and first floors of the rear rooms are stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops, and scratch-moulded boarded doors. Above are two six-panel scratch-moulded doors.

A bottom flight of stairs from the early 19th century curves in reverse, with a heavy moulded handrail and string, square newels, ball finials, and turned balusters. An ovolo-moulded beam is visible on the first floor, and a triple arch adorns the front of the house. The first-floor front room on the right has a slightly cambered ceiling, above which lies a 15th-century roof, comprising four half bays, with two relatively close trusses, an open truss, a half truss, and a further truss just inside the stone front wall. The open truss features a collar, tie beam, curved struts, cusping to the upper parts of the principals, a pair of threaded purlins, and originally a square ridge. The half truss has curved braces in place of a tie beam and scalloped wind braces. Timber framing is visible inside the left end of the front, originally with close studding to the ground floor, and end trusses survive. A large ground floor fireplace includes a crane and a separate oven.

The medieval house was altered in the 17th century, likely transforming it into an H-shaped plan with a rear wing extended. The early 19th-century alterations involved a Georgian style. The property was described as "a good house" in 1712 and was reputedly granted to Thomas Hooke as a reward for saving Henry V's life at Agincourt in 1415, remaining in the family’s ownership until 1985.