Old House including attached outbuildings

Old House with Attached Agricultural Outbuildings

This is a farmhouse with attached agricultural range, built across a slope with a 2-storey main range and a 3-storey cross-wing at the lower end. The main house features gables on the wall-line, rendered rubble stone walls, and concrete tiled roofs. Brick axial end stacks rise from the main range, with the left stack positioned on the ridge at the junction with the cross-wing. The cross-wing has a rendered south end stack.

The main house displays a 3-window range with 20th-century fenestration. Three small casement pairs sit under the eaves. The ground floor features an oak four-centred arched doorway in a rectangular frame, set within a lean-to porch, followed by a small square light and then two 20th-century casement pairs aligned with the centre and right windows above. Old photographs show the building originally had a string course under the first floor windows and different casement windows.

The cross-wing gable to the left contains a large external chimney breast with an offset on the right, the chimney itself also offset to the gable. 20th-century ground and first floor casement-pair windows sit to the left of the stack; the first floor window occupies the site of a former loft door. The west side features a striking 5-light wooden diamond-set mullion window set centrally to the third storey of the cross-wing, with mullions displaying a bead at each angle. A large single-storey lean-to is returned around the north gable. The north gable contains no chimney but has two tiers of dove-holes in the apex.

The north elevation of the main range has a lean-to to the ground floor right with a small casement window, and another lean-to to the left overlapping an outbuilding. A long first floor string course runs under two timber mullioned windows, each documented by Fox & Raglan as 6-light windows divided 3 and 3 by a heavy 5-sided centre mullion.

The attached agricultural range, of later date, stands to the right of the main house. Built of rubble stone with corrugated iron roofs, it comprises two ranges. The left range is a lofted granary with a ground floor door at the extreme left, adjacent to stone outside steps leading to an eaves-breaking loft door with catslide roof. A broad full-height cart-shed opening occupies the right side. The second range to the right has a lower-pitched roof and two ground floor doors with timber lintels.

Interior

The ground floor was only partially available for inspection in December 1999. The main range contains three rooms with parlour and hall, cross-passage, and the cross-wing to the west end. The cross-passage features a flagstone floor and framed timber wall separating it from the cross-wing. Two rooms shown on the Fox & Raglan plan are the former buttery and pantry; the buttery contains a small south fireplace, the only one connected to the south external chimney. The main house chimney backs onto the passage, with a planked and filleted studded door in a chamfered four-centred doorway at the hall entry on the north side of the fireplace. Sockets for a draw-bar remain visible.

The hall contains moulded beams and joists, including a beam with bead and hollow mouldings echoed on the window lintels. A winding stair is positioned on the south side of the fireplace. A post and panel partition separates the hall from the parlour, moulded on both sides with concave and convex moulding and mitred mouldings over the partition door. Chamfered wooden lintels frame the fireplaces in the hall and parlour. Winding solid oak baulk stairs serve the upper floors. Planked and ledged doors retain strap hinges.

According to Fox & Raglan, the bedroom over the parlour originally had no other access than through the parlour stairs, a surviving reminder of the medieval solar wing arrangement, although the hall was floored from the beginning. This bedroom features a timber-lintel fireplace. A modern doorway now connects it to the bedroom over the hall. The cross-wing has a timber-framed wall running right up to the apex, though the construction becomes rougher to the upper floors. The upper floors are unheated; the second floor has a mullion window and is open to the roof. Fox & Raglan notes this second floor may be an insertion. The first floor room is accessed from the hall stairs across a passage corresponding to the cross-passage below.