Coldbrook Farmhouse including attached barns

Coldbrook Farmhouse including attached barns

Farmhouse with attached barns of medieval and post-medieval origin, comprising a main house with substantial later agricultural outbuildings. The house is whitewashed roughcast over rubble stone with a slate roof. Two tall stone stacks rise from the left end, with a smaller brick stack raised to the right. The main range is two-storey with three windows, set back slightly, and a rear gable projection. A 20th-century porch has been added to the front. The front elevation features three pairs of 20th-century casement windows above, with a triple casement and casement pair flanking the door below. A narrow slot window sits higher up to the left of the door. The gable ends are constructed in rubble stone.

The rear parlour projection is a two-storey gable containing an ornate moulded oak window frame with chamfered detailing and mason-mitred joints. The frame displays reeded mouldings matching those found on the internal beams. The window was originally five-light with wave-moulded mullions, but the mullions have since been lost and replaced with a modern casement pair. A 20th-century first-floor window has been installed. To the left, a modern window sits above a lean-to structure, and to the right there is one 20th-century window on each floor.

The outbuildings attached to the north stand at considerably lower level and are constructed of whitewashed rubble stone with asbestos sheet roofs. At the left end is a remnant of external stone steps leading up to an eaves-breaking loft door. Two ground-floor doors with timber lintels and one small square window under the eaves follow. An irregular joint suggests the barn to the right is a later addition. This barn features one ground-floor window, one loft window above a vent loop, and large full-height double doors with two loops to the right. A lower added outbuilding of rubble stone with one door adjoins to the right.

The interior was not available for inspection at the time of resurvey in December 1999, but historical documentation by Fox and Raglan records significant detail. The ground floor of the older part originally contained a winding stair positioned to the left of the fireplace, with six heavy beams running across the space. A partition existed under the fourth beam, though the cross partition that would have divided two small rooms has since been removed. Access from the hall to the parlour was via a corner door positioned next to the partition. The small parlour contained one main beam. An inserted stone wall separated the older part from the late 17th-century kitchen, which also contained heavy beams.

The first-floor plan shows beams and a stone wall positioned as below, but the first floor retained its partition and incorporated a cross partition with a heavy oak pier, creating four rooms in the old part. Two doors provided access to the stair, one with a Tudor arch leading to the attic.

The hall partition retained traces of a high seat facing the fireplace, over which two stone corbels were positioned. A north-east entry door, now blocked by the addition of the north-east barn, may have originally provided secondary access, though the substantial level difference between house and barn suggests it was not the primary entrance. The kitchen end dates to the late 17th century and features notched collar trusses. The stone cross wall also dates to the late 17th century, and it has been suggested that this wall was constructed following the demolition of a timber-framed hall, with the older part of the house representing the solar of that earlier structure.

The older part contains highly enriched woodwork, particularly to the ceiling beams and joists of the hall. The principal beam displays four bead moulds converging at the ends, with slightly different wave moulds and converging stops applied to the joists. Similar bead mouldings appear on the parlour window frame and the deeply recessed parlour doorway, which features a Tudor door-head set in a rectangular frame. The post-and-panel partition bears a wave mould to the posts. Mouldings also embellish the panelled recess of the parlour window. Slots in the lintel of the hall's front south-east window indicate it originally contained eight four-inch lights, and an uncovered blocked north-west window revealed six lights with wave-moulded mullions matching those of the joists. Less important rooms contain hollow-chamfered beams with stepped hollow stops or flat chamfers with diagonal stops. A plain diamond-mullion window exists in the loft. The roof trusses feature tenoned collars.

The barn comprises a five-bay roof with triple purlins and tie-beam trusses with angled struts. A rear door to the barn displays an oak frame. At the left end of the barn a 17th-century oak-framed door features pyramid stops, and a blocked window is also evident.