Fold Farmhouse

Fold Farmhouse is a late 15th-century farmhouse, significantly altered in the 17th and 19th centuries, with replacement windows. It is constructed with a timber frame, limestone rubble walls with ashlar dressings, and a graduated stone slate roof. Originally an open hall house, it now presents as two storeys and four bays, with an added bay to the right. Quoins are visible. A projecting, two-storey gabled entrance bay is present, with a second bay and a rear semicircular stair turret. The facade features a fire window on the ground floor left, a blocked 2- or 3-light recessed and chamfered window to the first floor immediately to the left of bay 2, and a circular single-block window set into the gable of bay 2. A first-floor window in bay 3 retains some 17th-century masonry. The remaining windows are early 19th-century sash windows and 20th-century casements, set in plain stone surrounds. A 20th-century lean-to porch has been added to the left return of the entrance bay. End and ridge stacks are present, with a ridge stack above the entrance bay.

Inside, the ground floor on the left side contains a chamfered fireplace with corbelled jambs and a flat mantle stone. The central room has an 18th-century fireplace and a principal post with a reset brace to the left of a board door, leading to a stone newel staircase in the rear wall. The ceiling beams and joists in the central and left-end rooms are 17th-century, with 19th-century restoration and replacement. On the first floor, four pairs of principal posts were identified during a resurvey. The inner face of these posts is chamfered and carved with corbel-like tapering stops, featuring three roll mouldings at the top and knobs at the bases, supporting the chamfered arch braces. Above ceiling height, the apex of three trusses was visible. The arch braces are fastened into the underside of a saddle linking the two principal rafters. A short king post on the collar carries the square set ridge. Short curved longitudinal braces between the saddle and ridge are decorated with 4-petal flowers in relief. Cusped wind braces link the trusses to the two tiers of purlins, and the rafters incorporate reused timbers elaborately carved with roll mouldings. The elaborate roof structure shares similarities with Horbury Hall and Liley Hall near Wakefield, both featuring arch braces, saddles, king posts, and 4-petal flower motifs. These connections suggest a familial link to John Kaye, a landowner with ties to Warmfield cum Heath and the Kettlewell area.