Thorn Farmhouse And Thorn Farm Cottage

Thorn Farmhouse and Thorn Farm Cottage form a single structure that has been subdivided into two separate dwellings. This is a farmhouse and cottage of early 16th-century origin, substantially improved during the late 16th and 17th centuries, with a datestone recording 1687. The building was modernised and divided into two separate properties around 1980.

The structure is built of granite stone rubble with roughly-dressed quoins and granite stacks featuring granite ashlar chimney shafts, beneath a thatch roof. Originally, the building followed a three-room-and-through-passage plan, oriented to face south and built down a hillslope. The inner room at the uphill west end has a gable end stack. The hall contains a large axial stack backing onto the through passage, with a newel stair turret projecting to the rear. The service end room has a gable end kitchen stack. The building now stands two storeys throughout.

The original structure was open to the roof from end to end, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. During the late 16th and 17th centuries, fireplaces were progressively inserted and rooms were floored over. The datestone of 1687 likely marks the flooring of the hall and the reroofing of the hall and inner room.

Thorn Farmhouse now occupies the former inner room, hall and passage, with a single-storey extension of circa 1980 added to the rear of the inner room. Thorn Farm Cottage occupies the former service end kitchen, and has a service outshot to the rear converted from a woodstore around 1980.

The exterior presents an irregular four-window front of 20th-century casements, most with glazing bars. The ground floor left window has been converted to French windows. The front passage doorway to the farmhouse is positioned right of centre and contains an oak doorframe of uncertain date, with a 20th-century door behind a 20th-century porch with monopitch slate roof. Alongside to the right is a doorway inserted for the cottage, containing a 20th-century door behind a contemporary glass-sided porch with monopitch slate roof. The datestone inscribed 1687 is set under the sill of the hall chamber fireplace. The main roof is gable-ended.

The interior contains features from all principal building phases. The earliest feature is the early 16th-century two-bay roof over the service end, which contains two true cruck trusses with a small yoke at the apex carrying a diagonal ridge (Alcock's apex type L1). The roof structure and underside of the thatch here are thoroughly smoke-blackened, indicating the original open-to-roof construction heated by an open hearth fire.

The service end kitchen is probably 17th-century in date. The crossbeam has plain soffit chamfers, matching the finish of the oak lintel of the granite fireplace. This fireplace contains an oven on each side, the left one unusually large. The hall fireplace was probably inserted in the late 16th or early 17th century. Its back, positioned in the passage, is constructed of granite ashlar with a chamfered plinth and soffit-chamfered cornice. Alongside, a contemporary oak doorframe leads from the passage to the hall; it has an elliptical, almost round head and a chamfered surround. The fireplace itself is large and plain, built wholly of granite ashlar. At the upper end of the hall, an oak plank-and-muntin screen has chamfered muntins with roll stops positioned high enough for an upper end bench. The screen may be late 16th or early 17th-century, although the rest of the structure of the hall and inner room appears to be late 17th-century. Both rooms have soffit-chamfered crossbeams with late step stops, and the oak lintel of the inner room fireplace has a similar finish. A smaller similar fireplace exists in the chamber above. The roof over this section consists of tall, steeply-pitched A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars.

Thorn Farmhouse and Thorn Farm Cottage form part of a group of varied listed buildings comprising the attractive hamlet of Thorn.