Croft'S Folly

Croft's Folly is an early 16th-century agricultural building that was extended and converted to domestic use between 1580 and 1600. The structure stands on Windfallwood Common at Lurgashall.

The building is timber-framed with wattle and daub ground-floor walls, now underbuilt in stone. The first floor is tile-hung. The southern bay extension, added before 1750, is entirely stone-built with brick quoins and window surrounds. A single-storey rear extension was added in 1929. The roof is tiled with a hipped form and includes a northern cat-slide continuing over an endshot, plus a pentice to the eastern extension.

The exterior shows casement windows on the south-west and south elevations, with one per bay per storey. The two northern first-floor windows are gabled dormers rather than positioned under the eaves. The southern elevation features a large five-pane mullioned window at ground floor level with a two-pane casement above. The north elevation has no windows. A mid-17th-century brick stack was inserted into the smoke bay in two phases.

The interior retains significant structural evidence of its phased development. The ground floor shows very little visible timbering. The upper floor has square panelling to the south of the stack. Principal posts at the south end of the original agricultural building have rootstocks, whilst those in the southern extension are unjowled. A curved down-brace springs from near the top of a post at the south end of the original building, and the cross-frame contained down-braces which have since been removed. Similar down-braces appear in the circa 1750 extension. The spine beams in the second and fourth bays are chamfered with step stops; some joists in the fourth bay have similar stops, whilst those in the second are plain. North of the stack in the late-16th-century extension, there is a step-up in floor level.

The northern medieval roof has clasped side-purlins which do not reach the hip rafters, with a gablet at the apex. All timbers are sooted except the partition at the end of the first bay and the northern side of the third bay, which are clean. The roof over the original extension employs side-purlin and wind-braces construction, ending in a half-hip. The southern bay also has side-purlins with no ridge piece.

The northern two bays represent the original early-16th-century unfloored agricultural building, likely used for an industrial function such as blacksmithing, as suggested by the lightly-sooted roof timbers. The northern wall was the original end, with a hipped roof and mid-post. The partition of the next bay appears to be a later insertion. Stave holes in the tie-beam and down-braces in the posts indicate the open hall did not extend further south. Scarf joints in the wall-plates at the southern end and stave holes below the tie-beam at the next bay indicate the structure to the south is of later date.

Between 1580 and 1600, the building was converted to domestic use by the addition of two bays to the south. The second bay partition was inserted and both bays were floored at this time. A first-floor window in the east wall dates to this phase. The third bay was an open smoke bay extending from floor to rafters with a smoke louvre in the roof, with the western side partitioned to form a baffle entry. In the mid-17th century, a brick stack was inserted within the smoke bay. In the 18th century, a stone-built bay was added to the south, providing one additional room per floor. This must date before the mid-18th century, as there is no ridge piece in the roof. A single-storey rear extension was added in 1929.