Broad Lane Farm

BROAD LANE FARM

Former farmhouse. Probably late 16th century with additions of various dates, although principally late 17th century.

The building is constructed of rubble stone and cob, with some rebuilding in brick and concrete blocks. The roof is partly thatched and partly tiled with brick end stacks. The windows appear to have been refenestrated in the 19th century.

The earliest part is a late 16th-century three-room cross passage hall range. In the early 17th century a first-floor room or parlour was inserted above the hall. In the later 17th century the house was extended with the addition of a cross wing of three bays at the western corner and the construction of a large outshut with catslide roof along the entire length of the north-east side. This outshut comprises a kitchen, a wood shed and possible smoking chamber. During the 18th or 19th century further lean-to structures were added against the south-east gable wall, including a pig sty and a shippon. There are further lean-to additions to the north-west gable and the north-west side of the cross wing which date from the 20th century. The house now has a roughly L-shaped plan.

The principal south-west elevation has a slightly off-centre entrance now accessed via a single-storey porch with corrugated sheeting roof. There are three-light casements to either side of the half-glazed 20th-century entrance door; that to the left is a 17th-century mullioned window now masked by the porch, the other probably 19th century. At first floor are two further casement windows, each positioned below eyebrows in the thatch. To the left and projecting forwards is the gable wall of the cross wing with a 20th-century window to the ground floor and a 20th-century lean-to of blockwork construction beyond. Towards the southern end of this facade is a full-height raking buttress and to the right the end wall of a lean-to. The south-east gable wall is masked by 18th or 19th-century lean-tos, formerly a pig sty and a shippon. The rear, north-east elevation is unlit except for a 20th-century window in the late 17th-century outshut, to the left of which is a doorway leading into the cross passage and a further outshut with catslide roof to the extreme left.

Interior

The hall range is divided across the centre by the cross passage flanked by timber partitions; that on the south-east side rises to the apex of the roof. To the right of the passage is a large room, probably the hall, which has an open fireplace with a large timber bressumer. There is some evidence of incised graffiti, possibly birds, in a panel of the north-west partition wall. To the left of the hearth is a large opening that has since been blocked and is believed to represent a smoking or curing chamber of 19th-century date. The principal ceiling beams to this room are deeply chamfered with stepped straight-cut stops to both ends. They appear to be later insertions, probably introduced when the first-floor chamber was added in the late 17th century, suggesting that the hall was originally open to the roof, although there is no evidence of smoke blackening. A recess to the right of the fireplace is considered to be the site of a winder stair. To the left of the passage is the central room with fine chamfered ceiling beams which appears to have been one of the principal rooms. It has since been subdivided when a new staircase was inserted, probably in the 19th century. The north-eastern part of the room has been annexed to form a short passage that provides access from the cross passage to the room at the north end of the house, which retains a small late 19th or early 20th-century fireplace. The cross wing is now accessed from the hall range via the lean-to porch on the south-west side, but was originally entered by a doorway from the room at the northern end of the house, now blocked. The wing has a large single room, lately used as a workshop or agricultural building, but was originally part of the domestic accommodation. The room is unheated but much of the south-west wall has been rebuilt in the 20th century and this may have removed evidence for a fireplace. The first-floor joists have been removed but the surviving chamfered ceiling beams have elaborate double-notched stops.

The first floor, accessed from the 19th or 20th-century staircase in the central room, is divided into three chambers, with a further room occupying the entire first floor of the cross wing. The roof structure of the hall range is supported by jointed cruck posts that extend almost to the ground. At first floor the roof is exposed in places and consists of the collared cruck posts which are jointed to the massive principal rafters by mortice and tenon joints and crudely chamfered purlins. The roof shows signs of repeated alterations. The roof of the cross wing is supported by two A-frame trusses with principal rafters and a single row of purlins.