Musgrave Farmhouse

Musgrave Farmhouse is a house of circa 1300, significantly remodelled in the late 16th century, extended in the mid 17th century, and further altered in the mid 19th century. It is constructed of roughcast stone rubble with a slate roof, including double Roman clay tiles to the rear. Gable-end and axial brick stacks are present.

The house has an L-shaped plan. The original medieval front range incorporates a large three-bay open hall, an inner room, and a solar at the high end, separated from the hall by a closed truss. A cross-passage and a truncated low left (west) end were originally divided by low screens. In the late 16th century, floors were inserted into the hall, and possibly the low end, along with an axial stack built at the lower end of the hall. A wing was added to the rear of the high (east) end in the mid 17th century. A mid 19th-century remodelling raised the front eaves and subdivided the hall axially, creating a stair hall at the rear and extending the kitchen wing.

The south front presents an asymmetrical appearance with three windows. It features a mid 19th-century three-light casement to the right of centre, a late 20th-century window to the right, and two late 19th-century four-pane sash windows above. A late 19th-century two-light casement sits above a plank door with a 20th-century open porch to the left. The west gable end is of rebuilt stone rubble. The rear has lower eaves, a plank door in an old frame, a gabled wing to the left with an outshut in the angle, and a lower gabled wing on the end also with an outshut. The east side has a small mid 17th-century two-light chamfered timber mullion window frame on the first floor, with a 19th-century 12-pane sash window to the right.

The interior retains 18th-century fielded two-panel doors and plank doors. Mid 19th-century joinery features a staircase with a turned newel and stick balusters. A mid to late 17th-century staircase includes splat balusters, and there’s a 17th-century moulded and panelled door to the first floor. The hall, inner room/parlour, and kitchen have framed ceilings with deeply chamfered intersecting beams, with the parlour featuring a mid 17th-century moulded plaster ceiling with a frieze of vines and fruit, a moulded cornice, and centre and corner motifs to the ceiling panels with fruit and leaves. Curved feet of trusses are exposed in the ceiled chambers. The main front range’s hall roof structure is heavily encrusted with soot, including a closed truss at the high end of the hall, blacked on the hall side only. The cruck trusses have central posts supported on collars, rising to small saddles that carry a diagonally-set ridgepiece. Curved longitudinal braces extend from the feet of the posts to the ridgepiece. Two central trusses incorporate arch-braces to the collars. Arch-braces of one truss, some longitudinal-braces, and most of the common-rafters are missing. Evidence of a louvre is present. The roof over the inner room has been rebuilt, except for the truncated principals. The roof over the rear wing likely has jointed cruck trusses.