Farm Building Immediately West Of Cropple How Farmhouse

This former farmhouse, dating from the mid to late 16th century with 18th and 19th century alterations, retains significant original and early features. It stands immediately west of Cropple How Farmhouse in Muncaster.

Construction and Plan

The building is constructed of granite rubble, with evidence of former rendering beneath slate roofs. It is linear in plan with added outshots to the rear. Roof trusses and cross-walls divide the structure into seven bays, of which the eastern two have always served agricultural purposes, whilst the remainder were originally domestic spaces later adapted for farming use.

Exterior

The front north elevation has three timber doors, one of which is new, all beneath simple stone arches. Ground floor windows sit beneath simple stone arches, while upper floor windows have plain timber lintels. A small fire window stands adjacent to the west door. The upper floor features a blocked window in the central room, a timber lintel indicating a former window in the west room, and narrow ventilation windows to the east and west rooms. A butt joint is visible between the west and central rooms, with a short square stone axial chimney stack above.

The east elevation is plain. The rear south elevation has an upper floor timber door at its east end and two small plain windows. A door gives access to the outshot, which has two small plain windows in its rear wall and is built against a steeply sloping wooded bank. The western room of the outshot is unroofed. The west end of the rear elevation has a plain window at ground floor level. The west elevation has a centrally placed timber lintel to the upper floor, beneath which a large opening has been infilled and a modern timber door inserted.

Interior

The modern west door opens into a cobble-floored room containing a square unglazed mullion and transom oak window in the rear wall. A doorway leads to a small room housing a fireplace with what is thought to be the only completely intact surviving wattle-and-daub smokehood in Cumbria. The smokehood has a stone reredos to the rear and a heck, or fixed screen acting as a baffle, at one side of the fireplace. Other features include a fire window and alcoves for a wall cupboard and small oven. There is a chamfered and stopped oak bressumer with extensive traces of ochre colouring to the room face and soffit, together with heavy oak cantilevers and bearers supporting the stone superstructure of the smokehood. At the rear of this room, a partially blocked doorway in the heck formerly led to a rear passage, at the end of which stands an early oak-plank door of fully pegged construction hung on oak hinges formed from a pin turning inside a wooden staple pegged to the door frame.

The central ground floor room now contains animal pens and a brick-blocked doorway in one corner that originally provided access to the rear passage. This room retains a window with its original mullion-and-transom oak frame complete with diamond glazing bars. A rear central doorway gives access to the east room of the rear outshot. The ground floor east room is entered by a front stable door with strap hinges and contains animal pens. Many ground floor ceiling beams are chamfered and walls are whitewashed.

The west upper floor room contains the upper part of the smokehood with a series of slate off-sets designed to shed rainwater surviving within the present roof. Part of the flooring to this room has been removed and there is a modern timber door in the west gable wall. The central room has a chimney breast and an alcove for a wall cupboard at the west end, a blocked fireplace at the east end, and a rear timber plank door. Early timbers include tie-beam trusses and fragments of two cruck blades and an associated purlin. A stair position may be indicated by recesses at first floor level and by brick patching on the ground floor. The east room is plain. The rear outshot has a ground floor entrance into the building's corridor from its west room. The outshot's east room was partially of two storeys with part of the upper floor in situ.

History and Development

The building is thought to have originated as a mid to late 16th century cruck-built structure of longhouse or hearth-passage plan of one storey plus an attic, with a smokehood built of timber and wattle-and-daub heating a hall in the western end. It forms part of what was until recently a single steading but appears formerly to have been a small hamlet.

In the early 18th century, the external walls east of the smokehood were dismantled virtually down to the footings and the farmhouse was rebuilt on two full storeys and extended further east. This 18th century house was confined to the central section of the rebuilt structure, with the east bay used for agricultural purposes. The domestic element was designed with a central entrance and served by a fireplace and chimney built against the back of the smokehood reredos. The original window openings survive on the front elevation, including two narrow blocked windows, one on each floor, against the inserted chimney stack. Access between the two floors was by an internal staircase now removed. After this rebuilding, the former original hall at the western end appears to have been used as a downhouse or kitchen.

Three small outshots, one of which is unroofed, were added to the rear at an unknown date or dates. Latterly there was a stair in the eastern outshot giving access to the upper floor, which has subsequently been removed. At a later date in the 18th or perhaps early 19th century, a cross-wall was inserted on the ground floor only, partitioning off a small room incorporating the smokehood hearth which remained in use, whilst the remainder of the western bay was converted to agricultural use on both floors.

The date when the building fell out of domestic use has not been identified with certainty, although it may have been during the 1820s. Since ceasing to provide a domestic function, the ground floor rooms were used for stabling and stock housing until about 1980. The building has had some of its ground floor ceiling and roof timbers replaced at an unspecified date during the 20th century. It was made weatherproof about 2002 and tidied internally. A small part of the north elevation was removed and rebuilt to stabilise the structure at this time. The building is currently partially used for storage only.

Significance

This is a rare surviving example in the Lake District of a small mid to late 16th century farmhouse. The building's accumulated alterations clearly illustrate the development of a small farmhouse over successive centuries from its mid to late 16th century origins. It contains two exceptionally rare surviving original internal features: Cumbria's only known mid to late 16th century totally intact wattle-and-daub smokehood complete with reredos and heck, and what is thought to be a contemporary door to the rear of the smokehood heck that is entirely of oak construction with even the hinges formed from an oak pin turning inside an oak staple pegged to the door frame. No comparable door has been identified.