Snabdaugh Farmhouse And Attached Cottage

GREYSTEAD SNABDAUGH NY 78 SE 37/21 Snabdaugh Farmhouse and attached cottage

I

House and cottage. Probably C15 or early C16 with C18 and early C19 additions. Older parts squared stone, rendered. Later parts dressed stone; Welsh slate roofs. In 3 sections.

Centre section is a medieval fortified house. Two storeys, 2 windows. Deep offset above ground floor. Steeply-pitched gabled roof with left end stack.

Right section is C18 and early C19. Two storeys, 2 bays. Panelled door with overlight to left and to right a sash window on each floor.

C18 cottage to left has C20 windows.

Interior of old part has walls c.5. ft. thick on ground floor, slightly thinner on 1st floor. The house has a pointed tunnel vault at 2nd floor level with the roof laid directly on the vault. The side walls taper continually from the ground to the springing of the vault. The beams supporting the second floor or attic rest on stone corbels inserted into the vault; there are eight corbels each side but only five beams. Just visible above attic floor on south side are the round rere arches of two 1st-floor windows. Also in the attic, in the east gable, a window embrasure with two window seats, blocked square window rebated for shutters and lintel on chamfered corbels. In the west gable a very large chimney breast with smoke-blackening on the outside, possibly indicating a former chimney; right of this a large aperture goes down to ground level and was probably a stair well; at its head the springing of a 2nd Lower vault in finer ashlar.

The house appears to be so far unique as a domestic building in England. However it may be compared to the nave of Boltongate Church in Cumberland which is said by Pevsner to derive from Scottish models. Among Scottish examples of buildings with a top-floor vault, Smailholm Tower in Roxburghshire is assigned by the R.C.H.M. (Scotland) to the C16.

Listing NGR: NY7868684679