Sleath Farmhouse (aka Lech Farmhouse)

Sleath Farmhouse (also known as Lech Farmhouse)

A 16th-century hall house of four bays, now Grade II* listed, substantially altered and extended. The original structure is a cruck-framed hall with cross-passage, of which three trusses survive. The building has been developed over subsequent centuries with later brick extensions.

The front elevation comprises four bays with varied construction: three bays to the left are brick, while the right portion is rubble stone, all standing on a levelling stone plinth. The roof is slate with brick stacks to the left and centre, and a projecting stone stack to the right gable. Four 20th-century gabled dormers with boarded heads spring above the eaves. The ground floor has segmental arched openings with brick voussoirs and projecting keyblocks. The entrance doorway, marking the original cross-passage, is off-centre to the left; a square window opening stands to the left, and two window openings to the right. The right gable features a central projecting stone stack with off-sets, and on the first floor a 3+3 casement with cambered brick arch directly under the eaves. To the left is a narrow projecting brick stack and a single-storey lean-to with the remains of a projecting semi-circular oven.

A taller two-storey brick wing to the rear, offset to the left, has a hipped slate roof and brick end-stack. The main entrance front is to the right, forming a small courtyard against the rear of the earlier range. The wing has two 3+3 casements to the first floor and a broad segmental arched opening window to the ground floor, all with thin stone sills. On the ground floor left is a 4-centred arched entrance doorway which projects slightly. The rear elevation has two 3+3 casements to the ground floor and a range of stone-built lean-tos; these were roofless and dilapidated at the time of survey.

Interior

The main cross-passage is wide and stone-flagged with a doorway to the hall immediately to the right and the service room (a former cowhouse) to the left. A 19th-century quarter-turn staircase with a landing has been inserted at the end, featuring plain square-section balusters and square newels with incurving moulded caps. The original cross-passage doorway at the far end survives but is blocked.

The passage is divided from the lower end by a partition with horizontal plank boarding capped by a rail to the lower part, with added interwoven wattle infill in the originally open panels above. This partition is pegged to the tie-beam of the passage truss, a robust cruck-truss with lap-jointed collar and tie-beam. The tie-beam has regularly spaced mortices in its soffit cut to house tethering posts, indicating the use of the cross-passage as a feedwalk with tethered cattle fed through the formerly open upper panels of the partition. The lower gable-end wall has been rebuilt in brick with a brick fireplace and oven to the ground floor.

A 17th-century inserted stone chimney stands to the right of the cross-passage, built against the central truss. The hall ceiling beams are ovolo-moulded with scroll stops. The ground floor fireplace has a deep chamfered wooden lintel and chamfered monolithic stone jambs. The upper partition of the hall is defined by a well-preserved 16th-century post and panel partition with chamfered posts with straight-cut stops, set within the dais-end truss. To the right of the partition a doorway leads to the upper bay or parlour, which has a flat ovolo-moulded head to the window, chamfered beams, and a stone voussoired fireplace arch.

The stair gives access to a small landing at first-floor level where a doorway has been cut through the collar and tie-beam of the lower truss, providing access to the upper level at the service end. This truss is closed with its best face set to the passage side. A passage leads off the landing into the upper floor of the later rear extension, and a further doorway leads through the inserted fireplace wall and through a doorway cut in the central truss into the floored level of the open hall, which retains much smoke blackening of the roof timbers above. The central truss is a collar-beam truss with principal rafters resting on the wall plate; it is heavily smoke-blackened with its best jointed face set towards the dais end and probably defined the entrance into the single-bayed hall beyond the cross-passage. The dais-end truss is also smoke-blackened and its tie-beam has been cut through to form a doorway into the room above the parlour.

The two pairs of surviving trusses are exceptionally fine and bear mid-16th-century carpenters' marks. The large cruck blades measure approximately 5.5 metres high, 450 millimetres wide at the collar, and 500 millimetres wide at the tie-beam. The crucks have notched collars, tie-beams, and two tiers of purlins: the top row trenched, the bottom row supported by angle-struts from the ends of the tie-beams. The eastern pair of crucks survive complete; the western pair are sawn below the tie-beam.