Castle Farmhouse

Castle Farmhouse

This Grade I listed building is a medieval castle that was converted first to a manor house and later to a farmhouse. It survives as a substantial stone structure with random rubble walls, slate roofs, and eaves end gables. The building comprises a main hall range with a projecting wing to the left of the frontage, rising to two storeys, with a three-storey section to the rear. Stone end stacks with cornices punctuate the roofline, supplemented by two tall, massive square rubble stacks rising from the rear eaves, the right one being external.

The windows are predominantly 16th and 17th century in style, consisting of two-light stone mullioned casements with chamfered surrounds, four-centred lights, spandrels and dripmoulds. Some retain leaded quarries whilst others have glazing bars. The thick-walled fabric of the rear wing contains a single lancet window of 13th or 14th century date on the east end elevation, evidence of the building's medieval origins.

The front elevation is L-shaped, with the later left wing projecting and gabled to its sides. This wing has a two-light ground floor window. The return to the right has windows on two upper storeys, paired at first floor level, with the ground floor blocked. The main hall range is battered and features a small porch at the angle with two windows to the first floor and three to the ground floor. A blocked opening at ground floor centre marks the former entrance. The rear elevation displays a Tudor-arched doorway on the upper floor of the rear wing, reached by a flight of stone steps running parallel with the wall and providing access to the former banqueting hall. The side uphill elevation is double-pile, with the left gable end having ground and first floor modern casements under timber lintels, whilst the top floor retains a window of three chamfered mullioned lights. A central lancet sits between the two wings, and the right wing is windowless but features a full-length external stack. The side downhill elevation is heavily battered and retains an upper left two-light mullioned window with triple tracery light, topped by saddleback coping to the gable. An attached low embattled stone garden wall extends along the river bank, and at right angles runs the rubble wall forming the front inner courtyard, which incorporates a wrought iron gate.

The interior's principal feature is the magnificent first floor hall with a 15th century timber roof spanning four bays and two half-bays, one at each end. The principals have arched braces to collar beams, and alternate principals feature hammer beams with carved hammer braces on timber corbels. Two purlins with cusped wind-braces run between. The wooden floor of the hall is raised at the upper end. A fireplace in the side wall has a fine freestone surround: a square head with a canopy hood slightly projecting, carried on corbel brackets and finished with a double-roll moulding along the top edge of the opening, continuing round the radius of each corbel and down the front edge of each jamb, with a relieving arch above. A plain chamfered fireplace serves the former solar. The walls are limewashed and part rendered stone, with evidence of blocking visible on the roadside wall. A Tudor archway marks the lower end.

On the ground floor, a doorway leads to a living room with one massive cross beam and boarded ceiling, and a fireplace in the rear wall. Access continues to a lobby, formerly the cross passage between parlour and kitchen with doors at each end, the front door being the original main entrance. The kitchen occupies the far end and also features massive cross beams, both sets supporting the hall floor. The living room in the annex wing opens off a small hallway which also provides access to a Georgian staircase tucked behind the gable end wall, fitted with stick balusters and a ramped handrail, complemented by matching door surrounds. Bedrooms lead off on the two upper floors of the three-storey section. A first floor bedroom has casement windows set in stone frames that open inwards, one cross beam, and a fireplace in the side wall. One attic window is divided by the later stairs. A cellar provides access to the stream.