Chilliswood Farmhouse With Horse-Engine House And Barn

Chilliswood Farmhouse with Horse-Engine House and Barn

A substantial house, barn and horse-engine house of Medieval origin, substantially rebuilt in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and partly remodelled around the 1830s, possibly by Richard Carver. The buildings are constructed in rendered stone rubble and cob, with slate and clay double-Roman tile roofs. The stacks are axial with brick shafts; the south range has stone stacks with cornices.

The complex follows a courtyard plan. The long east range of three rooms probably occupies the site of the Medieval main range. The hall features a large fireplace in an axial stack, positioned not behind a cross-passage but directly adjacent to the kitchen at the north end. The kitchen has a gable-end fireplace with an oven and what appears to be a corn-drying chamber behind. The south end of the east range was truncated when a large late 16th-century south range was added. This south range originally contained parlours and a newel stair turret in the south-east corner of the courtyard. The north side of the courtyard is occupied by a late 16th- and early 17th-century barn, with a 19th-century horse-engine house on its outer side. Around the 1830s, the south range was remodelled and enlarged in Tudor Gothic and Classical styles, with a conservatory added to its east end and an archway opening onto the courtyard to the west. The west range is said to occupy the site of a 19th-century chapel, though it contains a 17th-century window; it is unknown whether a chapel-of-ease was licensed in the Medieval period.

The exterior presents two storeys. The symmetrical three-bay south front features a gabled centre that breaks forward with rusticated quoins and slight moulded cornices beneath sprocketed overhanging eaves. The gable carries moulded bargeboards, a stone finial, shield, and tablet inscribed 1594. The ground floor has four-light casements with glazing bars and stone hoodmoulds; the first floor has smaller three-light replacement casements. A stone plinth moulding runs across the front. A small wooden cusped-head lancet window is set in the west gable end. Stone flanking gables with finials and Tudor arches frame the composition; the right arch leads to a conservatory, the left to the courtyard archway.

The east elevation shows the conservatory on the left, reduced in height between two gables, with the main entrance inside beneath a cranked head, featuring panelled and glazed double doors. The east range to the right has various 19th-century casements with glazing bars and, at the centre-left, a five-light wooden mullion hall window, possibly reduced from a full-height Medieval hall window and widened. An outshut extends to the right, with a three-light mullion window and projecting oven beyond.

The rear (north) elevation displays a projecting gable-end of the east range on the left with a small single-light chamfered attic window, and the range to the right has a three-light chamfered wooden-frame window on the ground floor with applied timber-framing above. A lower roof line continues to the barn on the right, which has a cart-entrance and projecting polygonal horse-engine house.

Within the courtyard, the rear of the south range has a broad gable on the left with a small single-light chamfered attic window, and an outshut angles inward on the right. The west side of the east range has an outshut on the right and two- and four-light moulded mullion windows on the left. The left return shows a three-light chamfered window. The south side of the north range has two three-light mullion windows. The east side of the west range also carries a mullion window.

The interior of the east range reveals the former hall with a large fireplace featuring chamfered ashlar jambs and chamfered timber bressumer, deeply chamfered cross-beams, a plank-and-muntin screen at the south end, panelled window benches, and a stone-flagged floor. The former kitchen to the north has a large fireplace with stone jambs, timber bressumer and oven, a plaster ceiling with wrought-iron hooks, and a studded door with wrought-iron strap-hinges leading to a passageway in the wing to the west. This passage has chamfered beams with bar-and-cyma stops. Ceiled chambers above the hall and kitchen retain exposed side-pegged jointed-cruck trusses with straight mortice-and-tenoned collars, trenched purlins, and diagonally-set ridgepiece.

The south range was remodelled in the early to mid-19th century with moulded plastered ceiling cornices, chimneypieces and panelled doors with cranked arch heads, but large late 16th-century plank-and-muntin screens remain between the entrance hall and dining room, and between the dining room and drawing room. A chamfered Tudor arch doorway connects these spaces. A large newel stair features an octagonal newel-post with ball finial. The roof over the south range has been replaced with king-post trusses, though one late 16th-century closed queen-post and collar truss survives towards the east end.

The barn features side-pegged jointed-cruck trusses similar to those over the east range, with mortice-and-tenoned straight collars, trenched purlins, and diagonally-set ridgepiece. It is partly ceiled, with stables inserted. The horse-engine house has a large tie-beam with king-post, though the machinery has been removed.

This is a large house of Medieval origins, much reconstructed in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and partly remodelled around the 1830s, but little altered since the 19th century.