Flemingston Court Farmhouse

Flemingston Court Farmhouse

This is a substantial early 16th-century house built of local lias limestone rubble with ashlar dressings in Sutton stone or local sandstone, now entirely lime rendered and washed. The roof is covered with Welsh slate, though the kitchen wing is known to have been thatched in the late 19th century.

The building has an L-shaped plan, with the main apartment wing running east-west and a service wing projecting north from its west end. A detached kitchen block also belongs to the complex.

The main south elevation is arranged in four bays. From left to right, these comprise: a 3-light stone mullioned window with sunk chamfers, 4-centred heads and a dripmould serving the Inner Room or Parlour, with a blind wall above for the upper floor; a smaller 3-light window with a higher cill, flanked by two 2-light windows either side of a wall stack and serving the Great Room, the left-hand window having a lower cill; a very large lateral stack for the Hall fireplace; the cross-passage entry with a pointed arch of two chamfered orders and plain dripmould, fitted with 19th-century boarded double doors and topped by a 2-light window; and lastly a small window or vent to an originally unlighted and unheated room, perhaps a strong-room, with a 2-light window above it.

The left gable carries an external stack serving the Inner Room or Parlour and the room above. The right gable has an inserted brick stack, and its upper wall has been rebuilt. The north elevation of the main wing contains an inserted 20th-century 2-light small-paned casement to the ground floor with blind walling above, the cross-passage door as on the south side with a 2-light window above, and a 4-light mullion-and-transom Hall window with flat-headed lights that may be a later insertion, topped by a 20th-century 2-light casement. The west end is obscured by the projecting north service wing.

The service wing comprises two bays. The first contains a 16th-century lean-to on the ground floor housing the corridor to the Hall and the stair-foot, lit by two 2-light windows at different levels (the right-hand one possibly a 17th-century alteration) and a small 2-light window above. The north gable has an external stack added when the kitchen was moved indoors, perhaps at the end of the 17th century. The west side of this wing was improved in the 20th century with two 6-over-6-pane sash windows on each floor. The west gable end is mostly slate hung.

Internally, the house remains remarkably unaltered from its 16th-century planning. The Hall features a compartmented ceiling of six panels with roll-moulded beams and a fine 16th-century stone fireplace. An unusual feature are paired corner doorways with sharply pointed heads that share a single jamb, leading respectively to the Inner Room or Parlour and to the staircase.

The Parlour has a 6-panel compartmented ceiling with roll-moulded joists and a reconstructed fireplace. It was probably remodelled in the Georgian period, as evidenced by its 6-panel entrance door and wall panelling. The rear kitchen wing has been remodelled around 2000, though parts of the previous Victorian kitchen survive. The cross-passage, whose west wall is said to be a later insertion, and the originally unheated eastern room were not observed at the December 2003 resurvey. The staircase is modern but occupies the original compartment.

Upstairs, the Great Chamber, currently divided into three bedrooms, contains more pointed stone doorways and some plain 18th and 19th-century joinery. It has a higher floor level than the surrounding rooms. The roof trusses, not examined in detail, are known to be 16th-century collar trusses, and the Great Room was originally open to the roof.