Carhullan farmhouse and barn

This is a small farmstead comprising a farmhouse dating from the late 17th century, extended in 1729, and an L-shaped barn range probably from the 18th century but incorporating earlier features. The buildings form three sides of a narrow farmyard: the farmhouse occupies the south-eastern side, with the barn forming the north-west and south-west sides. The farmyard is open to the north-east.

Farmhouse

The farmhouse is stone-built, now obscured by paint, and rises two storeys beneath pitched roofs of graduated Lakeland slate. It has flat-faced stone mullioned windows throughout and a prominent boulder plinth. The building originally had a two-unit plan but was extended to form a three-unit house with cross passage.

The main south-east elevation has a right-end chimneystack and a chimneystack rising from the ridge just right of centre. Immediately below the central stack is an entrance within a single-storey gabled porch with crow steps and a crude boulder finial. The north side of the porch contains a six-panel door set within a moulded architrave, with an upright handle having leaf-shaped ends.

To the left of the porch, representing the original building, there is a small single-light fire window and a four-light stone mullioned window at ground floor level, with a two-light mullioned window beside it. The first floor has three two-light mullioned windows. To the right of the porch, forming the early 18th-century extension, there are four windows: two first-floor and one ground-floor window are two-light stone mullions, while the other ground-floor window is a rectangular single light, probably inserted to balance the fire window when the extension was added. The right return has a single-light first-floor window. The left return is blind and is now connected to the adjacent barn by an early 20th-century single-storey range.

The rear elevation has a projecting two-storey range with a substantial gable chimneystack and an added single-storey lean-to WC. This elevation and the projecting range are lit by two-light mullioned windows identical in form to those on the main elevation. A rear entrance to the cross passage has alternating jambs and a lintel inscribed 'IL 1729', with a 20th-century door set within a moulded, chamfered and stopped stone surround. To the right of the projecting range is a lean-to outshut containing a single mullioned window and a two-light mullioned stair window.

Inside, historic fixtures and fittings are mostly late 17th or early 18th century in date. The stone-slabbed cross passage has a six-panel door and architrave with an upright handle and back plate, opening into a large room. This room has large red sandstone flags to the floor, a substantial waney ceiling beam and rafters, timber lintels and wooden window seats, and a corbelled red sandstone fireplace with timber cupboards to either side.

A deep opening at the west end of the cross passage leads through the original gable end into the earlier late 17th-century building. The former firehouse and parlour now form a single large space following removal of a timber partition, and include an attached rear stair turret and buttery or dairy. A heck passage with an in-situ heck post opens into the room, which has a red sandstone flagged floor. A former inglenook in the north wall is lit by a small fire window and has a substantial fire beam and a red sandstone corbelled fireplace with chamfered lintel. To the right is a decorative scrolled spice cupboard with butterfly hinges, dated 1707, and two additional alcoves, probably salt and fuel stores.

There are three further substantial chamfered ceiling beams with moulded edges, some with chamfer stops. The central beam formerly held a timber panelled partition separating the firehouse from the unheated parlour. An inserted chamfered red sandstone fireplace stands against the west wall of the former parlour. Two openings in the rear wall of the firehouse each contain a three-panel door in a rustic surround with upright handles having leaf-shaped ends. These openings give access to a stair hall, from which the former buttery (now a bathroom) is entered through a similar door, and to the ground floor of the rear range (now a utility room) with substantial timber beam and lintels.

The oak dog-leg staircase has turned balusters and balustrade, with plain flat-topped newel posts having shallow pyramidal caps. The first floor has exposed waney ceiling beams and rafters throughout, with timber lintels and window seats. The hallway has a boarded floor comprising a mixture of early wide floorboards and later narrower forms. A full-height intact timber partition separates it from five rooms. Doors to the rooms are three-panel or five-panel doors of early 18th-century Westmorland style.

The most northerly bedroom has a timber partition around two sides of an inserted ensuite, with a central inset doorway containing a six-panel door flanked on either side by deep cupboards also with six-panel doors. The bedroom in the rear range has panelling and six-panel doors now forming a fitted cupboard and a sliding door to an ensuite. Within the first floor of the rear outshut is a substantial waney and adzed beam. The roof structure was not viewed, but it is understood that the original remains in place.

Barn Range

The barn range is built of roughly coursed local slate stone with stone dressings. It forms a two-storey L-shaped range with a substantial boulder plinth, beneath pitched roofs of modern tile.

The farmyard elevation of the north-west range has a full-height segmental arched entrance with finely laid voussoirs and chamfered stone jambs. This is flanked to the left by a pair of ground and first-floor ventilation slits, and to the right by a first-floor ventilation slit with an inserted two-light chamfered stone mullioned window below. To the right is a plain entrance with a pitching door. Attached to the right end of the barn and wrapped around the corner to the north-east gable is a later projecting two-storey lean-to structure. This has an entrance in a crudely made architrave of re-used chamfered lintel and jambs, a second inserted doorway, and a first-floor entrance reached by a set of external stone steps.

The right return has a capped external chimneystack and a slightly lower later addition with a pair of openings in the north gable. The rear elevation has a first-floor two-over-two sash window in a surround of reset architectural pieces and an inserted ground-floor window. To the right of a clear building break is a blocked ground-floor window with a projecting stone lintel and a pair of ventilation slits, with an inserted window to the upper right between a pair of blocked ventilation slits. Further to the right is an entrance within a chamfered stone architrave with projecting threshold, flanked to the right by three further ventilation slits, with a fourth now replaced by an inserted window. The left return is blind.

The south-west barn range is built against the end of the north-west range. Its farmyard elevation is partially open-fronted. Further to the left is an inserted chamfered stone mullioned ground-floor window, a single ventilation slit, and a pitching door. The left return and rear elevation are blind.

Inside, the six-bay north-west range has a replacement roof structure and is a largely open space with a byre undercroft at either end. The south-east byre has no visible features, and the loft floor above is a replacement. The north-east byre retains a cobbled floor surface and 20th-century timber stalls. The extreme north-east part of the barn has an inserted loft floor, below which is a stone scarcement indicating the presence of a former lower loft floor. The loft retains the upper part of a stone chimney supported on stone corbels. The south-west range has a stable undercroft at one end that retains its timber stalls and original loft beams.