Elfordtown Farmhouse

Elfordtown Farmhouse

This is a house that was originally a farmhouse, probably dating to the 17th century but possibly with earlier origins, and was altered in the 20th century. It is built of colour-washed stone rubble walls with a gable-ended roof covered in tarred slate. There are two stone rubble chimney stacks—one axial and one at the gable end of the wing—projecting slightly, and a brick gable-end stack at the left end of the original house.

The building follows a longhouse or longhouse derivative plan, with a shippon (animal housing) to the right and a passage dividing it from the hall and inner room to the left. The hall stack backs onto the passage, and the inner room was probably originally unheated. Although there is no obvious straight joint between the house and shippon, the shippon shows no early features and has probably been rebuilt, a conclusion supported by its considerable length. Later alterations make it unclear whether there was originally direct access from the passage to the shippon, or whether such access was intended for humans, animals, or both. The doorways to the staircase and on the first floor suggest a mid-17th-century date, though they may date from when the wing—heated by a gable-end stack—was added to the front of the hall and passage. The hall ceiling and fireplace may be earlier 17th-century work. The shippon was probably rebuilt in the later 18th century, presumably because its size corresponded to the absence of other farm buildings. The only other outbuilding was a cart shed, later added to the left-hand end of the house and converted in the 20th century into an additional room. The inner room stack probably dates from the 19th century. In the late 20th century, a room was created out of the shippon adjoining the passage.

The building is two storeys with an asymmetrical five-window front. To the left are two early 20th-century casements with glazing bars on the first floor and a 20th-century casement on the ground floor, the latter with a brick arch. To its right is a 20th-century stable-type door beneath a 20th-century gable hood. Beyond it is an original two-light granite mullioned window with 20th-century leaded glass. Attached at the left-hand gable end is a single-storey former cart shed with a 20th-century two-light casement on the front wall. The projecting wing at the centre has a 20th-century two-light casement on the ground floor of its left-hand face. At the gable end to the right of the stack is a 17th-century stone-framed single-light window on the ground floor, fitted with an iron stanchion bar. To the right of the wing, built onto the front of the house, is a 20th-century lean-to porch with a stable-type door. From this point the roof-line drops. To the right of the porch is a long barn with a late 20th-century two-light casement inserted at the left-hand end on the ground floor; above it is a single-light 19th-century casement, with a similar window to the right above a wide doorway flanked by buttresses on either side. Another wider doorway towards the right-hand end also has a sloping buttress to its left and slit windows either side of it. Both doorways have wooden lintels. At the rear, centred on the house, is a large gabled stair projection with a small, probably 18th-century light fitted with original leaded glass and an iron stanchion bar.

The interior contains a hall with a granite-framed fireplace, the jambs and lintel of which are chamfered. There are two heavy cross beams, chamfered with hollow step stops; one is supported on a wooden corbel at the rear, possibly inserted due to wall disturbance when the stair turret was added. The joists are contemporary to the beams and similarly decorated. The doorway to the newel stairs at the rear of the hall has an ovolo-moulded wooden frame with high hollow step stops. It retains a contemporary studded plank door with scratch moulding to the planks and fleur-de-lys strap hinges. At the top of the stairs are two similar but worn doorframes. There is limited access to the roof space, but the visible truss has substantial principal rafters with collars pegged onto their face, probably dating to around the early 18th century. Despite its modest size, this building contains a number of good-quality interior features, suggesting that longhouses and longhouse derivative houses were not necessarily lower-status buildings.