Cowthorpe Hall Farmhouse

House. Dating to the 17th century, it likely incorporates earlier remains, and was refenestrated in the early 19th century. The front is built of brown/orange brick in both Flemish and random bonds, while the rear and sides are ashlar. It has a purple slate roof. The house is two storeys high, with four bays, arranged in a lobby-entry plan. Limestone quoins are present. A half-glazed, four-panel wooden door is set within an added porch in the middle bay. Six-pane sash windows, set in flush wood architraves, feature throughout, except for a four-pane sash above the entrance. All windows have flat arches formed with stretchers and projecting stone sills. A projecting string course runs below the first-floor window sills, and the eaves are cemented. A brick ridge stack stands opposite the entrance and to the left. The remains of eight segmental header arches suggest the earlier ground-floor fenestration. The rear features ashlar walling, 19th-century windows, and a projecting service wing. The right return has a 20th-century door; a partly blocked three-light mullion window is to the right, and a two-light mullion window to the first floor. A blocked ovolo-moulded window is visible in the gable, with an inserted window to its right. The left return was not visible during a more recent survey. Internally, the front door opens to the side of a large chimney stack, with remnants of a timber mantel beam and other structural timberwork. A plaster and wood plaque on the lobby wall depicts a deer, a hand, and the shield of Hammerton and Roucliffe, all under a cusped arch topped with a poppyhead finial. A door in the right return leads to a passage running the full length of the house. The building likely contains significant remains of a late medieval structure. The front wall was rebuilt and the lobby-entrance plan created, probably in the 17th century, but the building's proportions suggest that timbering survives. The roof has not been examined recently. Bryan Roucliffe married Joan Hammerton and inherited the manor around 1450. During the rebuilding of the nearby church between 1456 and 1458, villagers were permitted to use the private chapel at Cowthorpe Hall. The farmhouse appears to be on the site of the former hall and may retain features of it.