Old Farm

Old Farm

Farmhouse, dating from approximately the mid-14th century, with significant remodelling in the 15th, 16th, and late 16th/early 17th centuries, followed by alterations in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The building is constructed of coursed lias stone rubble, rendered at the front, with some brick alterations. The roof is thatched and clad in corrugated-iron sheets, with stone coped gable ends. Stone and brick axial and gable-end chimney stacks are present.

The plan follows a three-room and through-passage arrangement, with the lower end to the right (east) containing a gable-end stack. The hall features an axial stack at its lower end, backing onto the through-passage, and an unheated inner room with a 19th-century brick gable-end stack. Originally, the hall was open to the roof and heated by an open-hearth fire. A floor over the inner room projected out over the inner room/hall partition into the hall, with a partition installed above this jetty around the 15th century while the hall remained open to the roof. In the 16th century, an axial stack was built at the lower end of the hall, and around the late 16th or early 17th century a floor was inserted into the hall creating a hall chamber. The roof over the lower end was rebuilt around the 18th century, leaving uncertain whether this area was originally open to the roof. Outshuts were added to the lower right (east) end around the 18th or 19th century.

The exterior presents two storeys with an asymmetrical four-window range on the south front. The windows are 19th-century three-light casements with horizontal glazing bars; the ground floor left window is a 19th-century sixteen-pane sash. A central doorway to the through-passage features a plank door. The rear (north) through-passage doorway has a chamfered wooden frame with a Tudor arch head, mason's mitres, and a plank door with strap hinges. A later plank door is present on the right, and a lean-to outshut on the left continues around the left (east) end.

Internally, the through-passage contains wide unchamfered joists and a plank-and-muntin screen on the low side. The kitchen has a chamfered axial beam, ceiled joists, and a large gable-end fireplace with a chamfered timber bressumer. The hall features a large stone fireplace with chamfered dressed stone jambs and a deeply chamfered timber bressumer, a deeply chamfered axial beam with cyma stops and half-beams against the front and rear walls, and an internal jetty at the high end with rounded and chamfered joist ends supporting a plain jetty beam. The inner room has wide closely-spaced unchamfered joists with trimmers for ladder stairs. A chamfered wooden four-centred arch doorway connects the hall-chamber to the low-end chamber, with a plank door.

The roof over the lower end, dating to around the 18th century, incorporates shaped, halved and lapped nailed collars and tenoned purlins. The hall roof is smoke-blackened and features a central jointed cruck truss with a scarf joint to post and principal, a lapped collar, and a halved apex. A closed truss at the high end over the jetty, with smoke-blackening on the hall side, includes a diagonal ridgepiece and some intact common-rafters. The inner room chamber roof has partially collapsed on the north side, but the south side and end trusses remain intact with light smoke-blackening on the hall/inner room chamber partition (clean on the high side). A collar truss appears near the partition, with two tiers of chamfered purlins and one tier of curved chamfered wind-braces, common-rafters, a diagonal ridgepiece, and smoke-blackened thatch and battens intact. An arch-braced truss against the gable end features a large cambered collar, above which are cusped and chamfered braces forming an arch at the apex of the truss.