Rowden Farmhouse

Rowden Farmhouse is a late 17th or early 18th century farmhouse, with a 20th century addition at the rear. A former shippon at the right-hand end may be a remnant of an earlier longhouse. The house is constructed of granite rubble, with the left-hand gable covered in roughcast. It has a half-hipped wheat reed thatched roof, featuring large granite ashlar chimneystacks with plain flat caps at either end of the ridge. The shippon end is primarily covered with cement-rendered slate, with a patch of corrugated asbestos.

The house originally had a 4-room plan. The front door opens directly onto a staircase; large rooms flank the staircase, each with a fireplace, and a smaller, unheated room lies beyond. The building is two storeys high, with single-storey lean-tos. The front elevation has a symmetrical arrangement of four windows: three-light windows in the two centre bays and single-light windows at either end, featuring wood mullions and 19th century small-paned glazing, likely original. Plank doors are positioned in the centre and at each end of the ground storey, with a gabled stone porch having stone seats on either side at the central doorway. Ground-storey openings, aside from the left-hand doorway (which has a plain granite lintel), are topped with flat arches incorporating roughly shaped voussoirs. The shippon end has a plank door at the left-hand end, above which is a 20th century window, and to its right a blocked ventilation slit. A stone lean-to is attached to the right-hand end. The lower gable wall, facing the road, has three ground-storey ventilation slits and one above in the gable; all are now glazed. At the base of the wall is a drain outlet. A single ventilation slit is present in the rear wall.

The interior of the left-hand ground-storey room contains a large fireplace with a flat arch and voussoirs similar to those on the exterior, along with chamfered upper-floor beams with run-out stops. The right-hand room features a Victorian cast-iron grate with patterned tiles. The roof has trusses with collars pegged to the faces of the principal rafters; there are no common rafters, only heavy thatching spars. The former shippon has a cobbled floor with a central drain, along with feeding trough stones with slots for tethering posts. There is no connecting door between the house and the shippon, and no evidence of one ever having existed. The roof was rebuilt in the 20th century.

The farmhouse is part of a good group with a barn and stable (listed separately) located on the opposite side of the farmyard.