The Farm With Attached Outbuildings And Garden Wall At Baldwinholme

The Farm with attached outbuildings and garden wall at Baldwinholme is a farmhouse with attached outbuildings, dating from the late 16th century with alterations around 1800 and further modifications in the late 20th century. It is constructed of clay walls with render and brick facings, enclosing a cruck-framed interior structure. The roof is covered with corrugated sheet over thatch, with brick ridge and gable chimneys. A low rubble stone garden wall with chamfered ashlar coping runs along the front.

The buildings are arranged in an L-shaped plan, with the house and northern outbuilding aligned north-south. The cross-passage plan house has been extended into the first bay of the attached outbuilding, while a southern outbuilding extends eastwards from the south end of the house.

The front western elevation comprises a five-bay single-storey range with loft space. This incorporates an original three-bay house with cross-passage at the north end and a two-bay outbuilding, with the southern bay of the latter now forming part of the house. An off-centre doorway sits to the left of a narrow fire window. To the right of the doorway are two rectangular windows with 20th century joinery. To the left of the doorway are two further windows: the one closest to the door is rectangular, while the end opening retains a six over six pane glazing bar sash window frame.

The rear elevation features a rear door serving the cross-passage alongside a single window lighting the entry baffle to the house. The single-storey southern outbuilding defines the southern boundary of the yard and contains two pairs of double doors to the yard elevation and a central single doorway. A gable stack projects from the west end.

Internally, the house body contains three cruck trusses, one aligned with the principal hearth bressumer. The hearth features a baffle on its east side, adjacent to the end entrance from the cross-passage, with an original firehood surviving within the loft space. A partition between the firehouse and parlour at the south end is aligned with the central cruck truss and has a plain plank door. To the north side of the cross-passage are three further cruck trusses, one defining the line of the passage north wall. An inserted ground floor brick wall now marks the end of the enlarged house, with timber stud infill from the former central truss of the outbuilding forming the upper part of this partition. The ground floor of the north bay of the former outbuilding retains its original cobbled floor and central drain for cattle standings. The southern outbuilding preserves a single surviving cruck truss with curved windbraces to the purlins, together with a second pair of braces extending from a partition wall west of the surviving truss, presumably formerly fixed to a now-removed cruck truss.

The range of buildings was originally single-storey and subsequently enlarged by raising, as indicated by the ridge beam level and the apexes of the cruck trusses. Dendrochronological sampling of timbers suggests a felling date of 1576 for structural timbers within the house that had not been reused from elsewhere.

This substantially complete clay-walled, cruck-framed farmhouse of cross-passage plan form with attached outbuildings at both ends represents both a significant regional plan type derived from longhouse construction and important vernacular constructional detailing. Buildings of this type are a rapidly diminishing resource due to their fragile fabric, and the surviving examples on the Solway Plain constitute one of the most significant surviving groupings nationally.