Birdsend Farmhouse

Birdsend Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from the third quarter of the 17th century, with significant alterations in the 19th century for the Price estate. It is constructed of Flemish bond brickwork with blue quoins and dressings, with brick-nogged timber framing on a rendered plinth, and squared coursed lias rubble to the chimney base. The roof is tiled, with four bands of club tiles to the left side.

The farmhouse has two gables facing the road, set two rooms deep. The front of the building features stone sills to all windows except for bays, and low, pointed blue brick-on-end heads with keystones. A chamfered blue brick top defines the plinth. There is a canted, single-storey hipped bay on the left, featuring a two-light mullion and transom window with a stone sill. Recessed to the right is a gable with a single-light window to the left and a canted, single-storey hipped bay to the right containing a pair of French doors raised one step. A flush string course runs across the facade, with alternating courses of blue and red bricks. Above this, there are two-light casement windows in each gable, with a single blue band above the window in the left gable. The right gable is lower than the left, and a brick chimney sits in the valley between the roofs. A verge runs along the roofline.

The right return has a plain brick section on the left, with matching plinth and string as the front facade. A projecting stone chimney base rises to the eaves, featuring three diamond-set brick flues. The right half of the wall is timber-framed, with a single-panel high section to the ground floor. It features a two-light mullion and transom window on the left and a two-light casement on the right, both dating to the 19th century. The first floor has long, straight braces to the main posts of the timber frame, with a two-light casement and shallow panels above to the eaves. Crested ridge tiles are present.

The back left gable is fully timber-framed, with a ground-floor lean-to. The first floor displays long, straight braces to the corner posts, a four-light casement window, shallow panels above the bressumer, and angle braces to the corner posts of the tie-beam. A collar truss resides above, accompanied by a casement window and "V" struts in the apex. Plain bargeboards finish the gable.

Inside, the wall between the left and right halves of the house, below the valley gutter, is timber-framed throughout. Large chamfers are present on the ground-floor ceiling beams. A scratch-moulded door with H hinges and original 17th-century hinges and latch is found on the first floor. Cut tie-beam trusses are positioned between bays in the roof of the timber-framed section, with half tie-beam trusses with collars only in the centre of each bay, two pairs of purlins, and a hidden ridge detail. There is a cellar located below the rear of the timber-framed section. Evidence of a probable moat remains to the east. A substantial part of a two-bay timber-framed house, or wing thereof, survives within the 19th-century rebuild or enlargement.