Fletchers Farmhouse

DENT

SD78NE DENTDALE 162-1/12/63 (South side) Fletchers Farmhouse

GV II

Farmhouse with attached barn, the house now derelict. Probably earlier C17 (or earlier) enlarged and remodelled in mid C18; altered. Roughly-coursed sandstone rubble with through-stones and quoins, stone slate roof partly replaced with corrugated iron. Single-depth plan of 2 unequal bays, the smaller of which appears to be integral with the barn, on an east-west axis facing south, with the barn continued to the west. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, the house with 2 windows at 1st floor either side of a quoined vertical joint to the eastern portion at this level. The wide east bay has ruinous gabled porch to the left (covering a doorway immediately right of an internal partition wall), a close-set pair of square 2- and 3-light mullioned windows to the right, both with flat-faced stone-slab mullions. The first has fixed 3-pane glazing in the left light and none in the right, the second is blocked. Small rectangular 4-pane fixed window above the porch. To the left the range which includes the barn has one rectangular window on each floor of the domestic (right-hand) bay; a wagon doorway in the centre with a flat-arched head and rubble voussoirs with a drip-band (the left half blocked), and external steps to a loft doorway at the left end. Roof of eastern bay now mostly corrugated iron; square chimney at junction of domestic bays, former gable chimney to right now missing. Rear: through-stones on 3 levels; blocked doorway opposed to that at the front; blocked shouldered doorway to barn range, 2 chamfered 1-light windows to the right (2nd blocked) and a square 2-light window above these. INTERIOR: the east bay has a chamfered lateral beam (now lacking upper floor and almost all joists); an C18 fireplace at the east gable wall with corbelled jambs, now blocked and lacking the lintel, flanked by spice-cupboard holes and a cupboard recess to the right. Lateral stone partition wall with doorways to left and right, remains of a quarter-turn stone staircase on the east side and a corbelled chimney rising from 1st floor level above the stairs. On the west side of this partition a square fireplace with rubble jambs and a corbelled lintel, and a smaller fireplace above. HISTORICAL NOTE: the vertical joint at 1st floor, the corbelled chimney to the smaller west bay and the character of the fireplace in it (parlour type), the opposed doorways immediately east of the central stack and the 2 chamfered windows at the west end of the rear wall, all suggest that the building was originally a 2-unit long-house with a hearth-passage, the former byre to the east of the passage converted and raised in the C18 as domestic accommodation, and the former hall at the west end then converted into a barn.

Listing NGR: SD7622086643