Roantree

Roantree is a small farmhouse with attached shippon and barn, now derelict and used as animal shelter. The building probably dates to the later 17th century or early 18th century, with the barn added in the early 19th century; it has been altered.

The farmhouse is constructed of roughly coursed large rubble with quoins, now mostly dry-jointed, and has a stone slate roof. The plan runs north-west to south-east, facing south-west, arranged linearly: a 1-unit house with the remains of an earlier 1-bay building to the left, a 1-bay shippon attached to the right-hand gable, and a 2-bay barn added beyond that.

The house stands 2 storeys and contains 2 windows. A vertical joint at the left corner marks where it incorporates the gable of the earlier building to which it was added, and a quoined vertical joint to the right marks where it integrates the lintel of the shippon doorway. The ground floor features a square-headed doorway offset left of centre, with a monolith lintel and remains of a screen wall or the side of a former porch to the left; a narrow 1-light window to the left of the doorway; a small square window to the right; and a narrow 1-light fire-window to the right of that. The upper floor has 2 small square windows. No chimneys are visible externally, but a large corbelled chimney to the right is visible in the shippon. The earlier building to the left, one narrow bay and formerly 2 storeys with a lean-to on its left, is mostly collapsed, but its surviving rear wall has a narrow opening at ground floor and a square opening above. The shippon to the right has a doorway with a large monolith lintel and contains original lateral oak boskins, slightly altered; the corbelled chimney of the house is visible in its loft. The added barn has a doorway offset to the right, slightly reduced in width.

The rear of the house has one narrow 1-light window near each end at ground floor (that to the left being a stair-window) and a larger window above to the right. The shippon has a loft doorway and the barn has a square loading window.

Internally, the house measures approximately 5 by 4 metres. It contains 3 lateral beams: that to the left with joints of a former wooden partition; that in the centre chamfered and slightly cambered; and that to the right a former smokehood bressumer with original bearers. Original floor joists remain, except at the left end where the ceiling has been removed. An inserted rectangular fireplace with plain stone surround is present. To the left (rear) of this is a heck screening the bottom of a narrow quarter-turn stone staircase, and to the right is a rectangular cupboard recess. White-washed plaster covers the walls and ceiling of the former dairy in the rear left corner. Window reveals are deeply splayed, with translucent glass in the dairy window perhaps original. The upper floor is unpartitioned and unceiled, with an exposed principal-rafter truss.

Roantree is very similar to Blea Beck, approximately 600 metres to the south, but in a better state of preservation. It is an instructive survival of the type of 1-unit 2-storey farmhouse, with important implications for the history of farmhouse development in this dale.