Burton Hill Farmhouse Including Adjoining Outbuilding

Burton Hill Farmhouse including Adjoining Outbuilding

Farmhouse with attached outbuilding, located in Dentdale. The building is described in earlier records as "16th century, originally a hall house, extended and altered in 1655", though it probably dates to the mid or later 17th century with enlargement and raising in the early to mid 18th century. The structure is built of roughly coursed mixed rubble, mostly painted white, with stone slate and green slate roofing.

The house follows a single-depth, three-bay plan on an east-west axis, facing north, with an added staircase outshut to the rear (south) and an outbuilding continued to the east. It stands two storeys tall with five ground-floor windows grouped as 2:3. A plinth runs the full width of the house.

The three-window portion, probably the earliest part of the dwelling, features a gabled porch of two low storeys positioned between the second and third windows. This porch has a chamfered segmental-headed outer doorway, a square-headed inner doorway with a heavy oak door hung on strap hinges, a segmental-headed single-light window above, and a ball finial. The ground floor contains three chamfered stone mullion windows with hoodmoulds: a four-light housepart window to the left of the porch, a two-light fire-window further left, and a two-light window to the right. The first floor above has a two-light fixed window, a square window of two unequal lights with fixed small-paned glazing (9+3 panes, including 3 opening panes), and a small six-pane sash. The two-window portion to the left has a small two-light ground-floor window with traces of a formerly wider opening to its right, and above it a small two-light casement and a larger sixteen-pane sash. All first-floor windows have wooden lintels. A square ridge chimney is offset to the left, with a lateral chimney at the junction to the left and a finial stump on the right-hand gable.

The outbuilding to the left has a square-headed doorway and small window at ground-floor level, with a lean-to at the east end. The rear of the house includes a full-height lean-to staircase outshut with a window, and in the west angle of this a low pentice roof protecting a cheese press. The rear of the outbuilding features a small wagon doorway near the east end, protected by a shallow lean-to porch.

Interior: The housepart to the left contains two large chamfered lateral beams. The left beam is positioned as a smokehood bressumer but bears mortices apparently from a former wooden partition on its west side, and is undercut at the south end as if for a staircase. A fine early to mid 18th-century cupboard is built into the opening of a former window in the rear wall, featuring shaped fielded panel doors and two drawers. At low level to the left stands a relocated spice-cupboard bearing raised lettering reading "T/A L/1655". A large 18th-century rectangular stone fireplace with corbelled lintel and moulded cornice is present, though the opening is partly blocked and papered over. A dog-legged staircase with closed string and wavy splat balusters is also present.

The house forms a group with a barn approximately 5 metres to the north-east and a washhouse approximately 2 metres to the north.