Old House And Attached Barn, Thornhill Farm

This is a 17th-century gentry house, later converted to agricultural use. The present stone building dates from 1699 and incorporates remains of an earlier cruck-framed structure. Originally a gentleman's residence, it was probably converted for farming purposes in the 18th century. A byre and hay loft were added in the 18th or early 19th century, and the roof of the main building was raised after 1868. At the time of survey, the building was under consideration for conversion back to residential use.

Materials and Construction

The building is constructed of rust-coloured local oolitic sandstone, squared and laid in courses. The stonework is well finished on the north elevation and around the original openings on the south elevation, but rougher elsewhere. The later byre and raised eaves are built of blockier, greyer local sandstone. The replacement roof covering is not of special interest.

Plan and Layout

The original house follows a three-cell plan with a central cross passage, slightly offset to the east, which was open to the middle room to the west. The cross passage had opposed entrances. The end rooms were heated and had chambers above, probably linked across the unheated central room via a gallery on the north side.

Agricultural alterations included the insertion of two new cross passages at either end of the building and the insertion of an upper floor incorporating taking-in doors. A byre with hay loft above was added to the west end of the original house. A later open-fronted barn attached to the west of the byre is not of special interest and is excluded from this designation.

Exterior

South elevation: The front doorway, positioned slightly west of centre, features a well-dressed monolithic lintel and long-and-short jambs. The reveal is chamfered and the lintel is inscribed "P IE 1699" (initials thought to represent John and Elizabeth Pearson). This doorway was blocked with later stonework at the time of inspection. To the east is a well-preserved two-light chamfered stone mullioned window, with a similar window above lighting the central room. Evidence survives of two further similar windows that would have lit the rooms to either side, both partly cut by later inserted doorways; the western window was probably of three lights. At inspection, the western doorway was partially blocked and the eastern one totally blocked with later stonework. The byre has a blocked ground floor door and a pair of upper windows in the position of a former inserted loading door, served by a ramp said to have been added in the early 20th century.

North elevation: A near-central doorway similar to that on the south elevation, but with a lighter lintel bearing no inscription, was only partially blocked at the time of inspection. To the east is a two-light mullioned window missing its central mullion, with evidence of a second window to the west cut by an inserted door which uses a mullioned window cill or lintel for its lintel. A similarly inserted doorway lies to the east. At either end of the elevation is a small, square, single-light window formed in dressed chamfered stonework. These ground floor windows are interpreted as fire windows. Similar small windows, slightly offset towards the centre, light the upper floor. Immediately above the central doorway is evidence of another upper floor opening that appears to have been a pitching window in an 1868 photograph. The elevation also has two taking-in doors inserted when the eaves were raised after 1868. The byre has two openings: a doorway with a taking-in door directly above, with a stone lintel between them probably reused from elsewhere as it has two square sockets.

East gable: The upper part was rebuilt when the roof was raised and is finished with stone coping supported by plain kneelers. The upper floor has a near-central inserted window. Below are two blocked openings: a possible single-light window to the south and a low, roughly arched opening suggestive of an external bread oven or an opening for a pig feed trough.

West gable (house, internal to byre): This has a single-light window (similar to the fire windows) high up on the north side of the original gable. Below, at first floor level, is an inserted doorway.

West gable (byre): This has a coped gable with plain kneelers and two openings, both loading doorways.

Interior

The house retains the lower stubs of two pairs of cruck blades embedded in the walling, dividing the house into three bays. Just east of the line of the western crucks is a raised stone cill that is channelled and socketed for a timber partition along the western side of the cross passage. Other patterning in the original flagstone floor suggests other internal arrangements. There has been at least some later rearrangement of the flagstone floor towards either end of the building with the creation of lowered walkways linking the inserted opposed doorways. Such rearrangement may conceal evidence for the gable-end hearth places implied by the fire windows.

Between the cruck blades on the north wall is a series of stout, sawn-off joists with no corresponding sockets in the south wall, interpreted as supports for a gallery linking upper chambers at either end of the building. The floor structure at the time of site inspection was a later insert employing reused timber, some of which may be of interest. At least one fragment of cruck framing is built into the wall: the cruck saddle incorporated into the post-1868 walling high in the south wall. This and other evidence for the early structure and arrangement of the house contribute to the special interest of the building, even when no longer in situ. The post-1868 roof structure of king post trusses in sawn and metal-pinned timber is not of special interest.

The interior of the byre includes the original west gable of the house. The byre also retains a number of reused cruck framing timbers, both in its roof structure and as internal lintels to openings. The roof structure has a central truss which reuses a pair of cruck blades for principal rafters and a ridge-tree for its tie beam. The way the timber has been reused is of special interest, in addition to the interest that can potentially be derived from reconstructing the original form of the cruck framing.

Setting

On the north side of the building is a stone-flagged platform which contributes to the setting of the house and may be a contemporary structure linked to the original building.

Historical Background

A fragmentary inventory dated 1672 for John Pearson of Goathland documents his house as having a hall, kitchen, great and little parlours (possibly a single subdivided room), and two upstairs chambers. This John Pearson was a gentleman and his inventory included few items associated with farming. The lower parts of the two cruck frames embedded in the walls of the Old House may be the remains of the building included in this inventory. The reused cruck framing timbers, mainly concentrated in the later byre, may also be from this earlier building.

The stone-built Old House is dated to 1699 by the inscribed lintel for the front door, which also carries the initials of John and Elizabeth Pearson (this John probably being the son or grandson of the John Pearson of 1672). As originally built, this house would effectively fit the description in the inventory, with three ground floor rooms and two upper chambers tucked largely into the roof space at either end, so it may have been an in-situ rebuild in stonework of an earlier timber-framed house.

However, it is possible that the house was never completed as a domestic building, as there is little indication of hearth places or other internal domestic fittings beyond the stone-flagged floor with its channelled cill. There is also documentary evidence for a marked decline in the fortunes of the Pearson family: an inventory of 1719 for another John Pearson is almost entirely agricultural in nature, and Pearson is described as a yeoman rather than as a gentleman. Consequently, it is possible that the Old House was turned over to agricultural use at a relatively early date, prompting a series of alterations over the years.

It is possible that the house retained a cruck-framed roof into the late 19th century: a photograph dated 1868 shows the building with a thatched roof that has a lower eaves line and steeper pitch than the current roof. However, the attached byre to the west, also shown in the photograph and thought to be an 18th-century addition, includes a number of cruck frame timbers in its structure that are presumed to have come from the Old House.

Special Interest

The building is designated for its extensive evidence of the form and design of a gentleman's house of 1699. It includes remains of an earlier cruck-framed building, possibly that detailed in an inventory of 1672, including both fragments encased in later stonework and reused timbers in the roof structure of the attached byre. It is a good example of a vernacular building that has evolved and been adapted to new uses over the centuries, the alterations being incremental rather than the result of wholesale rebuilding. The design is relatively unusual for the 17th century in the North York Moors: a house where both north and south elevations were given an architectural treatment and where the central open hall appears to have been unheated but was flanked by heated rooms with gable-end hearth positions, each with a chamber above.