Lower Whatley Farmhouse

Lower Whatley Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from circa the 15th century, possibly earlier. It is constructed from random rubble chert stone and has a gable-ended roof originally clad in Bridgwater clay tiles, though the front has been re-clad in corrugated-iron sheets. Stone axial and gable-end stacks are topped with later brick shafts.

The building follows a three-room and through-passage plan with the lower end positioned to the right (east). Originally, both the two-bay hall and lower end were open to the roof, with the hall heated by an open hearth fire. An unheated inner room occupies the left (west) end with a chamber above, separated from the hall by a closed truss. Around the late 16th or early 17th century, an axial stack was built at the low end of the hall, backing onto the through-passage, and a floor was inserted into both the hall and lower end, which subsequently became the kitchen with its own gable-end fireplace. Around the 18th or early 19th century, an outshut was constructed behind the kitchen and partitioned axially. Later in the 19th century, a smaller outshut was added to the rear of the hall and a porch was built to the through-passage front doorway.

The exterior presents a one-storey and attic frontage with an asymmetrical south-facing front of three windows. Various 19th and 20th-century three-light casements with glazing bars are present, along with two attic windows in dormers at eaves level. The through-passage doorway, positioned right of centre, features a late 16th to early 17th-century chamfered timber Tudor arch frame and studded plank door with wrought-iron strap hinges. A 19th-century gabled stone porch with a round arch protects this entrance. A small slit opening appears in the right (east) gable end. At the rear (north), the main roof is carried down as a catslide over an outshut in the angle to the right, whilst the west gable end is rendered.

Internally, the through-passage is screened on its lower right side by a plank-and-muntin screen with a chamfered Tudor arch doorway leading to the former kitchen. The kitchen contains deeply chamfered cross-beams with large step stops and a substantial fireplace with a chamfered timber bressumer and blocked oven. The doorway from the through-passage to the hall is framed with a chamfered Tudor arch. The hall itself has deeply chamfered cross-beams stopped at the centre as if for a framed ceiling, a large fireplace with a chamfered timber bressumer featuring keel stops, and a bench at the high end with a later 17th-century panelled back. The inner room features chamfered half-beams with step stops, a small brick fireplace, and a two-panel door to the hall constructed from three planks. A similar door above provides access from the hall chamber to the inner room chamber. Winder stairs at the lower end of the hall are made from solid timber baulks. The hall chamber contains a late 19th-century cast-iron chimneypiece. The closed truss between the hall and inner room is smoke-blackened on the hall side and has a triangular block in its apex, trenched for a square-set ridgepiece of which only a fragment survives. A full cruck truss at the lower end of the hall is cranked at wall-plate level, partly buried in the inserted stack, with a triangular block in the apex also trenched for a square-set ridgepiece. A smoke-blackened purlin on the north side of the hall continues over the low end at the rear, where it has been truncated. The low end truss, replaced around the 18th century, has principals crossed at the apex. The original common-rafters, south purlin, and most of the ridgepiece have been replaced.

This is an interesting late Medieval vernacular house that was substantially remodelled around the late 16th or early 17th century, extended during the 18th and 19th centuries, and has remained little altered since.