Town End Farm

Town End Farm is a farmhouse with an attached outbuilding, dating from the 17th century, with substantial remodelling in the late 18th century and further alterations in the late 20th century. It is constructed of rubble stone with some squared dressings, stone ridge chimneys, and a slate roof laid in diminishing courses. The building’s plan reflects a gradual development, originating with a 17th-century house and attached outbuilding accessed via a passage between the two. This arrangement was later remodelled to create a central entrance to the farmhouse.

The front elevation consists of a two-bay, two-storey house to the left and an attached outbuilding to the right, the latter partially altered to extend the domestic accommodation. A single-storeyed porch with a pitched roof is centred on the house, sheltering a plank front door. There are six-over-six pane sash windows to either side of the doorway. To the right of the chimney defining the original house are two blocked ground-floor openings and two late 20th-century windows; one is a three-light, chamfered mullioned window with an ashlar surround and four-pane casement, and the other is a single-light opening, also with an ashlar surround and four-pane casement. The right-hand gable of the outbuilding has a ground-floor doorway and a window to its left, and a small first-floor window, possibly originally a breather. The house's left-hand gable is extended by a catslide roof over a rear lean-to, itself enlarged by a single-storey wing.

The interior has not been inspected, but is known to contain features of interest. Specifically, the right-hand ground-floor room has a jowelled hearth surround with a mantle cornice above a deep lintel and a 19th-century range, made in nearby Crosby Garratt. To the left of this room is a built-in cupboard with fielded two-panel doors and drawers, which fills the space of the former doorway from the 17th-century cross-passage, now blocked. Exposed floor joists and cross-beams are present on the ground floor, and on the first-floor landing, a blocked doorway suggests the earlier location of the staircase.

Historically, the 17th-century house was altered with the addition of a rear offshut and the remodelling of the front elevation. This included blocking the cross-passage entrance and creating a new central doorway to the house.