36, Main Street

House at 36 Main Street, Long Preston

This is a house of 17th-century origins with evidence of early 18th-century improvements, renovated and extended in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was formerly listed as 1 Grosvenor Place and is believed to have been the farmhouse for Grosvenor Farm, with the adjoining properties forming farm cottages.

Construction and Materials

The house is built from local gritstone, squared and coursed on the front elevation and coursed rubble on the gable. The rear is covered in modern render. The roof is laid with stone slate in diminishing courses, with stone chimneys. Modern external joinery has been installed throughout.

Plan and Layout

The building comprises two bays arranged in a single depth, rising to two stories with a continuous 1.5-storey rear outshut. The entrance is slightly offset to the east and opens directly into the west end of the housebody (the principal ground floor room, now used as a dining room), separated from the entrance corridor by a stud wall. A dog-leg staircase is positioned opposite the entrance within the outshut. A rear projecting wing is a 20th-century addition; the first-floor bedroom in the outshut is probably a 19th-century addition. The plan form—with outshut and rear dog-leg stair—developed in the late 17th century and became popular in the early 18th century, comparable to larger examples such as Huffingham Hall, Burnley (dated 1696) and Hollighthorpe Farm, Crigglestone (dated 1725).

Exterior Features

The front elevation displays a central entrance with a sawn stone surround. The windows appear to be 19th-century enlargements, also with sawn stone surrounds. They have lost their original flush-faced mullions but retain their glazing patterns, now fitted with modern three-light timber casements. The west side is quoined, with stonework running through to the quoining of number 34 Main Street, into which the eastern stack is incorporated into the raised gable.

The west gable is raised and coped with shaped kneelers, differing in design between the front and rear. The outshut is marked by a building break. On the ground floor to the left of the stack stands a former two-light mullioned window with a sawn stone surround. Above it is a smaller window in the outshut, retaining evidence that it was originally a chamfered two-light mullioned window. To the rear west, a former two-light chamfered mullion window, deeply set in a chamfered surround, has been converted into a low doorway.

Interior

Interior doors throughout are non-matching 19th-century panel doors, many showing evidence of alteration. All architraves and skirtings appear to be modern.

The parlour (west front) contains two exposed ceiling beams, chamfered with step-and-runout stops, and a simple stone fireplace surround.

The dining room (east front) features two hewn hardwood ceiling beams that are unchamfered. The large fireplace has a simply moulded stone surround that is probably early 18th-century, with a small carved timber overmantle above bearing the inscription "MT 1710". To the left are two alcoves (former salt or spice boxes); to the right is a 19th-century built-in cupboard.

The entrance corridor has an east wall (dividing passage from the dining room) formed by a stud wall that may conceal an earlier timber partition. The west wall is masonry with a central alcove containing a large stone lintel marking the original entrance to the parlour. At the end in the outshut stands the dog-leg staircase, which has a modern balustrade, though the remainder of the structure appears to predate the 20th century.

The kitchen (east, rear) has two hollow chamfered beams and a window inserted into the back of a late 18th-century corbelled fireplace.

The bathroom features an ornate plaster ceiling with a geometric design of narrow strapwork in Jacobean style, though it lies within the rear extension added after the 1909 Ordnance Survey map.

The first floor displays sawn softwood exposed beams.

The roof structure comprises a single king-post truss that is jowled to house a square ridge plate, with principal rafters single-pegged into the post. Purlins are staggered back purlins. The tie beam is concealed, and the common rafters have been replaced. The king-post truss design is very similar to examples dated nationally to the 17th century, such as the truss dated 1617–49 in the Old Manor House, Manningham.

Historical Development

The house is believed to have been built in the 17th century for a yeoman farmer rather than gentry, as evidenced by its architectural details. The parlour beams are of a style commonly used into the early 17th century but only used for lower-status rooms thereafter until the early 18th century. The chamfered mullion windows follow a 17th-century pattern that persisted in lower-status positions into the 18th century.

The dining room, originally the housebody (the principal room used for cooking, eating, and general living, with the parlour serving as the private room also used for sleeping), retains an early 18th-century fireplace with an overmantle dated 1710. The carving of this overmantle appears authentic, though it may have been repositioned. The dated overmantle likely marks a major renovation involving the replacement of a smokehood with a chimney and fireplace, and possibly the construction of the rear outshut.

A local historian has connected a 1782 licence to preach with the house, naming John Holgate as a licensed preacher in 1803. By 1839, ownership had fragmented among members of the Holgate family: Samuel Holgate owned number 32, John Holgate owned number 34, and William Holgate owned number 36, possibly all sons of the 1803 preacher.

By circa 1879, the house had ceased to be the farmhouse for Grosvenor Farm and underwent extensive renovation, including the enlargement of many windows with sawn stone surrounds. In the early 20th century, the house was occupied by a plasterer and slater named Mathew Jackman, who likely created the Jacobean ceiling and other plasterwork in the rear wing added sometime after the 1909 Ordnance Survey map.