Home Farmhouse

HOME FARMHOUSE

This is a house of late medieval origin, substantially altered and encased in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with further modifications in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was restored between approximately 1965 and 1970. The building is timber-framed, with the ground floor underbuilt in coursed squared gritstone and the first-floor front encased in red and orange bricks laid in stretcher bond. The roof is covered in pantiles.

The building is 2 storeys tall, arranged in 3 bays with a lobby-entry plan. Original rear and end outshuts survive; the rear outshut was extended outwards during the 20th-century restoration. The principal façade features a 6-panel door between bays 1 and 2, set beneath a flat stone lintel. The windows consist of recessed chamfered mullion windows of 5, 5 and 4 small lights respectively. The first floor has three 18-pane side-sliding sashes. A hipped roof with gablets sits above, with a large brick ridge stack positioned opposite the door.

The rear wall has 20th-century wooden mullioned windows, and the outshut roof pitch is shallower than that of the main range, with 20th-century roof lights to the left of centre. The left return shows timber corner posts with a left brace to the tie beam and close studding to the first floor, with an inserted side-sliding sash window. The ends of the floor joists protrude above the bressumer, which is underbuilt in stone. A 2-flue stack projects from eaves level to the left of centre. The right return features a 20th-century roof light in its sloping roof.

Internally, entry is onto the side wall of a large fireplace serving the central hall. The hall has a stone fireplace built into an inglenook with a built-in stone bench to the right. The wooden mantle beam is a reset 17th-century feature, probably originally extending between two posts of the timber frame and defining a smoke bay at this end. The ceiling spine beam rests on the mantle beam.

The left ground-floor front room has a corner fireplace with an inserted 18th-century stone surround. This room retains exceptional late 16th or early 17th-century wall paintings depicting a pattern of arcades framing birds flanking vases and stylised flowers. The frieze above and below contains stars with crude egg-and-dart and fret motifs, all executed in black and shades of red-brown. A painted wall section now in the entrance lobby bears the remains of a painted motto reading "FEARE G..." and "HART I?6..." The south partition wall of this room was originally timber-framed, and its doorway was reopened during the 1970 restoration, though it was likely an insertion. Painted stones were reused in the walling between the right door jamb and the rear wall of the chimney stack.

The left rear room has an inserted surround in its corner fireplace. The partition wall between the hall and bay 3 is constructed of studs and planks, with studs featuring a cyma-type moulding. It sits on a wooden sill over stone footings, which were cut through when the door into the front room right was inserted. Prior to the 1970 restoration, this north-facing room's floor was 4 steps lower, forming a half-cellar and suggesting its use as a dairy in the 18th century. The doorway into the small rear room is probably original; the partition wall between the two is stone-built. Both rooms contain large rectangular recesses built into the stone gable wall, suggesting the later installation of built-in cupboards when the ground-floor walls were underbuilt around 1600.

The rear aisle contains an inserted staircase at the west end, positioned where an earlier newel stair formerly stood around the south-west corner post. Four posts of the full-height rear wall survive, along with braces, wall-plate, and first-floor close-studding above bressumer level. The first floor reveals the extent of the surviving original timber frame, consisting of 4 trusses with the central 2 flanking a brick stack, probably rebuilt in the 18th century when first-floor corner fireplaces were inserted through the timber-framed hood (traces of which remain). The floor level of the central bay is higher than the two ends, indicating later flooring over an open hall. The front wall-plate shows 2 sets of holes for 4-light wooden mullion windows, and original wattle and daub survives in the partition wall between the front room and outshut in bay 1. The common rafter roof survives throughout the building.

Home Farmhouse was probably the principal farm of the Slingsby Estate of Scriven Hall. In 1851 the house functioned as the Kings Head Inn, run by Henry Johnson, and in the late 19th century there was probably an external stair to a door on the left return. The house remained part of the Slingsby Estate until its sale in 1965. It represents a very rare survival of an early vernacular building.