Shippen Farmhouse

BRIDFORD POUND LANE SX 88 NW 2/59 Shippen Farmhouse GV II Farmhouse. Late C16/early C17 or earlier; late C20 addition and renovations. Whitewashed rendered cob in stone rubble footings; thatched roof, gabled at right end, hipped at left end; right end stack, axial stack with rendered shaft. Plan: Single depth main range, 4 rooms wide, the main entrance into a narrow unheated room to right of centre containing the stair: rear left C20 wing forms an overall L plan. Complex evolution. The right hand room is an addition; the rest of the main block is of jointed cruck construction and at least late C16/early C17 in date. The roof timbers over the 2 right hand rooms of the main block appear to be lightly smoke-stained, suggesting medieval origins to the plan, but the staining may be wood preservative and a framed partition between the rooms in the roofspace appears to be clean on both sides: this partition rises above a plank and muntin screen and suggests that the 2 rooms are the hall and narrow inner room of a 3 room plan house but there is no sign of a passage behind the hall stack, the left hand room being heated by a modern stack backing on to the hall stack. The lower end and passage may have been rebuilt but presumably close in late to the putative higher end. The extreme right hand room of the main block is probably an C18 or early C19 addition, late C20 thatched wing at rear right. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 5 window front, the eaves thatch eyebrowed over some of the first floor windows; long C20 single-storey porch lean-to and store room on front at right with a wooden shingle roof; fenestration of 2-light timber casements with glazing bars and 1 fixed window, with C19 and C20 glazing although some of the frames may be C18. On the left return the roof is hipped over a first floor C20 canted bay window. The rear elevation of the main block has a blocked doorway which formerly gave access to the unheated room. Interior: The first from left room has a chamfered crossbeam with runout stops and a plank and muntin screen with chamfered muntins with diagonal stops; partly- blocked fireplace with a bread oven. The screen rises as a framed partition of heavy scantling to the apex of the roof. Roof: Side-pegged jointed cruck roof construction over 3 left hand rooms. Apex of roof over left hand room not inspected but the foot of one of the crucks is exposed and extends below the level of the first floor. The roof over the 2 adjacent rooms has threaded purlins and a threaded ridge with what appears to be smoke-staining. The roof over the right hand room has straight principal rafters and the former hipped end of the earlier block is visible in the roofspace. An attractive traditional house of the region with a complex building history.

Listing NGR: SX8285886812