Lower End Farmhouse and well head

Lower End Farmhouse and Well Head

A farmhouse dating to the 15th century, with alterations made in the late 16th to early 17th century and further work in the 21st century.

The house is constructed of limestone and brick with clay tile and slate roofs. It stands on the south-west side of Lower End with its principal elevation facing north-east. The building is rectangular in plan with a lobby entrance, and includes a narrower extension added to the east which has a more recent outshut to its rear.

The main farmhouse has three bays and two storeys with additional attic rooms. An eastern extension of a single bay and storey, also with an attic room, has been added. The earliest phases are built of roughly coursed stone with timber lintels to the windows. A later single pitch clay tile roof covers the main range, which has two brick stacks. The extension is brick-built on its north-east elevation and has a slate roof with a single stack. All windows are timber casements with leaded lights and clay tile sills. The extension has hipped slate dormer windows on both elevations. A modern lean-to porch with a hipped slate roof, built adjacent to a shallow buttress, provides entry on the north-eastern elevation at the central bay. The rear south-west elevation is similar in character but features a smaller open timber porch standing on stone piers with a tiled pitched roof. The main clay tile roof at the rear is interrupted by three 21st century metal conservation-style flush roof lights.

The interior contains three main rooms on the ground floor. The principal room has a large inglenook fireplace with a substantial timber bressumer and thick chamfered bridging beams with stops. An entrance hall, partitioned on the south side of this room with a 20th century stained glass panel, has an early external opening now enclosed by the porch on its north side. The dining room area to the south also features chamfered beams and contains a recessed panel with a wall painting of patterns and lettering, identified through research as late 16th or early 17th century, set into the remains of the dividing wall. The northernmost room has a corner fireplace and a deeply chamfered ceiling beam with lamb's tongue stops on the inner end. The kitchen contains a large fireplace with a rounded brick-built chimney breast and timber bressumer. The original ground floor rooms are heavily beamed with low ceilings and substantial wall thickness. Modern timber stairs rise from the southern partitioned area to the first floor, where a corridor with an internal blind window runs broadly east to west, providing access to bedrooms and later bathrooms. A new staircase has been constructed into the attic space with partition walls installed to create additional bedrooms and bathrooms. A single small casement window remains at attic level in the western end gable.

In the rear garden area adjacent to the rear entrance of the farmhouse stands a square raised wall well head formed of limestone laid in rough courses, probably contemporary with the earliest section of the farmhouse.