Foulbridge Farmhouse And Attached Cottage

Foulbridge Farmhouse and Attached Cottage

This house and attached cottage incorporates the former aisled hall of a 13th-century Preceptory of the Knights Templar, founded around 1226. The hall, originally aisled and open to the roof, was probably floored in the 15th century, with its roof altered in the early 19th century. The timber-framed hall is now encased in roughly squared sandstone. A 18th-century cottage and early 19th-century house with later rear extensions have been added; the whole was restored and renovated in 1986. The cottage and rear of the house are constructed of roughly squared sandstone, much of it reused material. The main house front is built of pink-cream brick in garden wall bond and presents a 2-storey facade with 3 windows to the right, with the hall set back to the left displaying 2 full-height windows. A single window in the gable end of the cross wing projects at the far left. The roof is concrete pantile with brick stacks. The house front door, beneath a cornice porch on chamfered posts, and the 16-pane sashes are 20th-century replacements, as are the full-height hall windows with square lattice lights. Painted wedge lintels occur to ground-floor openings and painted timber lintels to the first floor, with painted stone sills throughout. Both ranges feature coped gables and shaped kneelers beneath an M-shaped roof, with end stacks to the front range and an end stack to the right of the rear.

The interior contains substantial remains of a 3-bay aisled hall with a further half-bay and traces of a possible cross bay at the cottage end. Much of a later inserted floor was removed during restoration, leaving sections at each end to serve as galleries. Four pairs of square section posts survive, moulded on all sides and carved with attached shafts and capitals. These posts were originally braced to arcade plates by double arched braces forming 2-centred arcades, as evidenced by the rear wall of the first bay. Four roof trusses, numbered from the house end, survive in varying states of preservation. The fourth truss is nearly complete, with double arched braces to a cambered strainer beam forming 2-centred arches. The strainer beam is linked to the tie beam by three short struts, two of which are raked. The cambered tie beam supports a crown post that originally had 4-way braces to collars and collar purlin. When the hall roof was lowered, the collars and collar braces were removed, but the collar purlin was retained as a ridge piece with some original rafters reused. Collar purlin braces survive to the ridge piece. The tie beams and crown posts of the remaining trusses survive with mortices indicating their similarity to the fourth truss. A form of cross-bay truss springs from the capital of the fourth truss, consisting of chamfered arched braces to a cambered tie beam. This tie beam supports a short jowled post with a mortice, which carries the half-bay truss at the cottage end of the hall. Of the half-bay truss, the tie beam, post, and one brace remain. Against the end wall stands a massive stone fireplace with a chamfered Tudor-arched lintel. The purlins of the later cross-wing roof are roughly attached to the cross-bay truss. A section of plank and muntin partition and a door with butterfly hinges survive in the cross wing. Beyond the partition to the right, a 17th-century cupboard door with butterfly hinges and carved surround has been reset in the outer wall, with a second cupboard door with butterfly hinges to the left.

The house interior features a ground-floor open-string staircase with reeded balusters, a moulded and ramped-up handrail wreathed around a turned newel at the foot, and scrolled tread-ends. The front door recess is panelled, with hall doors of 6 raised and fielded panels. The room to the right has a reeded ceiling cornice with rosettes to the corners. The room to the left contains a segment-arched recess to the rear with reeded architrave and a reeded ceiling cornice. On the first floor, a ceiling rose in plaster adorns the landing. The room to the right contains a basket grate with anthemion mouldings. All front window recesses are panelled and shuttered.

The formerly aisled hall provides a unique surviving example of a timber-framed hall of this type in northern England and is all that remains of the Knights Templar Preceptory at this location.