Woodhead Farm

Woodhead Farm

Woodhead Farm is an early 19th-century Gothick farmhouse with associated steading, located in a rural setting.

The farmhouse is a 2-storey, 3-bay building, harled and painted with possibly later decorative flintstone dressings. It has a piended roof and has undergone later alterations and additions.

The principal (south) elevation features a central Doric tetrastyle ashlar portico in antis containing a 4-panel door with a semicircular fanlight above, flanked by a pair of pointed arch windows. Above the portico sits a quatrefoil window with stylised 4-pointed star tracery. The outer bays contain 1-bay, 2-storey sections with pointed arch windows. Long and short flintstone dressings are used to the quoins, window and door margins, and the portico framing, with further scalloped flintstone dressing to the eaves band course.

The west and east elevations are mirror images of each other, each consisting of a single bay with angle and eaves ashlar margins. Both contain blind pointed windows to the ground and first floors with flintstone dressings.

The north elevation features a large advanced section dominated by a later 4-bay box dormer addition with ashlar angle margins, skews, and scrolled skewputts. There is a 1-bay re-entrant angle to left and right, and a further low, narrow single-storey, 3-bay advanced section with scrolled skewputts and an entrance door to the left.

Windows throughout consist of timber sash and case windows with Y-tracery glazing. On the south elevation, those in the outer bays have 5-panes over 6-panes glazing, while those flanking the entrance doorway have 5-panes over 4-panes. The fanlight features simple Y-tracery. Windows on the north elevation have plain rectangular openings with modern replacements. The roof is covered in grey slates and is topped by a pair of corniced stone ridge stacks.

The interior of the farmhouse was not seen during the 2004 inspection.

The steading is an early 19th-century structure, originally of single and 2-storey square plan with a courtyard, forming a substantial classical layout. It is constructed in loosely coursed sandstone rubble with door and window margins in droved long and short dressings. The steading has undergone later alterations and additions.

On the external north elevation, a central 1-stage gabled entrance tower with quoin strips, band courses, and an apex stone dominates. It contains a high segmental arched pend, with a dovecot presumably housed in the upper stage. To the left is an advanced, low monopitch pantiled 4-bay former implement shed, now partly blocked as animal pens. To the right, a long projecting wing is set at right angles, altered at the wallhead with added brick courses.

The external east elevation now comprises 5 bays with irregular openings and evidence of blocked openings. The south elevation features a simple central entrance opening with a low monopitch roofed dilapidated addition to the left. This elevation is painted white with badly deteriorated harl visible underneath. The west elevation is obscured by a large modern painted metal shed.

Within the courtyard, the north elevation features a central pend tower (as described for the external north elevation) flanked by originally 3-bay sections, some openings now blocked. The outer 2 bays to the right are painted grey. The east elevation of the courtyard now comprises 3 bays with blocked openings and alterations, painted grey. The south elevation within the courtyard has a central simple entrance with 3 bays to the left and an upper outer bay with a blocked opening, and to the right are originally 2 bays with the outer bay openings now blocked. The west elevation comprises 5 bays.

Windows throughout consist of fixed light 9-pane timber windows, those on external elevations predominantly in poor repair, with rooflights and timber boarded openings and doors. The roofing is in grey slates with a near-central ridge stack to the south.

The interior of the steading's eastern wing was partly seen in 2004, comprising a single large space with a timber roof.

Boundary walls consist of a rubble coped wall to the southeast, springing from the steading with a doorway adjacent to it. To the north is a short isolated L-shaped section of rubble coped wall with a square pier capped with a square cap to the far north.