Byfield House

Byfield House is a large house situated in a row, incorporating a former barn, built in the 17th and late 18th centuries, with later 19th and 20th century alterations. It is constructed of limestone ashlar, with stone slate roofs to the front and concrete tiles to the rear. Originally a double-depth through-passage house of two bays, a new entrance was added in the late 18th century, after which the through-passage became a secondary space. A barn or wool store at the rear was converted to domestic use in the 17th century.

The street elevation presents four bays to the left and two bays to the right. The three leftmost bays are two storeys and have an attic. They feature an early 18th century pedimented doorway leading to the through passage. This doorway has a rusticated architrave and a plank door. Twelve-pane sashes are displayed unevenly. The bay to the right has a late 18th century main entrance with a six-panel door and a small hood. Above the entrance is a sash window with a Gothic interlace head. Two 19th-century gabled dormers are set into the steep roof pitch, and there are two ashlar stacks, one backing onto the passage. To the right, two bays rise two storeys over a cellar, with a band separating the storeys. Large twelve-pane sashes are present, alongside a cornice and parapet and a tall, steeply pitched roof with an ashlar stack on the right gable.

The garden elevation includes a 19th-century section with French windows flanking the through passage, and a modern pent pantile roof above. 19th-century mullion and transom windows of four and two lights are above, accompanied by two gabled dormers. The rear elevation of the late 18th-century section is obscured by a projecting barn wing. This wing comprises a 19th-century two-storey link block followed by the barn itself, featuring two doors, one with a segmental head, and two two-light mullion windows above a steep concrete tile roof.

Inside, the ground floor contains an early 18th-century panelled room with a modern fireplace and a shell-headed niche with shaped shelves. To the right is a tall, Adam-style room with high-quality neo-classical plasterwork and a contemporary fireplace. A plain, late 18th-century stick baluster staircase rises from a rear hall, which contains a fire surround seemingly assembled from early 17th and early 18th-century components. Several unusual small, early 18th-century ashlar fireplaces are found in the bedrooms. The roof structure includes a principal rafter to the 17th-century section, a pattern book king post with multiple struts to the late 18th-century section, and a large principal rafter with collars and staggered purlins to the barn. This multi-phase house retains evidence of its former use as a wool barn.