Burfa

Burfa

This is a grade II* listed house of considerable architectural interest, comprising a timber-framed hall house with significant 16th-century alterations and later extensions.

The exterior shows the structural history clearly. The north gable end displays square-panel framing with jowled storey posts, and a second jowled post set one yard in from the corner marks the position of a framed smoke bay. The original hall house was substantially rebuilt at its upper end during the 16th century as a two-storey crosswing. This wing is jetted both front and back, with the front (south) jetty beam more elaborately moulded with rolls and quirks (now visible only internally). The north jetty has been partially underbuilt in rubble, and an external stack with raking shoulders abuts it. The crosswing framing is close-studded throughout with continuous storey posts, mid-rails, and splay jowled corner posts.

The south wing comprises two phases of rubble construction: an 18th-century kitchen block and a 19th-century former granary with external stone steps. Stone slate roofs cover the easterly ranges, with mainly slate to the west. Four rubble stacks with square-section uppers exist, and a tall ridge stack to the west of the 17th-century wing has offsets and a slated gablet built around it. All doors and windows are modern.

The interior is remarkable for its exposed timber-framing and early painted decoration. Two 15th-century full-height cruck trusses frame the long lower end bay of the original hall house. The west (end) truss has panel infill and mullion window-framing, with a head-height rail notched and halved into the cruck blades that thickens on the east (room) side to act as a joist support; the truss has been truncated above the collar. The east (partition) truss is partially cut down for later dormer framing. It is heavily smoke-blackened on both sides and has a yoke collar halved into the blades with many protruding pegs, a diagonally-set ridge piece set into a notched apex, and at head height a further halved-in rail with empty mortices for partition framing exposed on the underside. This rail and the cruck blades up to rail height have narrow chamfer and square-cut stops. The room framed by the crucks has a former partition beam running transversely with wide chamfer and diagonally-cut stops, and two main joists running axially with narrow chamfers.

The 16th-century close-studded crosswing contains one large ground-floor room with a large axial beam with wide chamfer and two subsidiary beams with narrow chamfer and square-cut stops. Very wide chamfered joists are also exposed. In the south-west corner is a doorway with a modern four-centred arch lintel; the adjacent joists are trimmed, indicating the position of the original staircase. The first floor contains two rooms open to the roof with exposed queen-post trusses, chamfered tie beams, purlins and wallplates, and short plain windbraces in each bay corner. Smoke blackening on the timbers suggests the upper floor was heated by a brazier fire. The position of three small windows in the corners of the wing, overlooking the jetties, can be established; they were simple unglazed three-light openings with squared chamfered mullions, and one original mullion survives.

The central rooms date to the second half of the 17th century. A large ground-floor rubble fireplace backs on to the former cross-passage and is inserted into an earlier smoke bay; its lintel is chamfered with scroll stops. Two axial beams with ovolo mouldings have their eastern ends inserted into the framing of the close-studded wing. A further ovolo and step-moulded beam along the line of the south gable end probably framed the entrance to the stair turret. On the first floor the fire stack tapers sharply and is enclosed within the framing of a smoke bay in the form of a bressummer beam resting on jowled posts. Exposed beams have square-cut stops. Above, an attic contains one smoke-blackened end truss and a later central open truss with halved apex and collar.

Traces of painted decoration were discovered in the two wings during restoration, including imitation panelling framed by twisted columns, stylized heart motifs and scrollwork, dating to the mid to late 17th century.