Pool Farmhouse with attached agricultural building

Pool Farmhouse with attached agricultural building

The house is a timber-framed farmhouse now arranged in an L-shaped plan, comprising an original 2-bay range on a north-east to south-west axis with an added bay at the south-west end and a projecting wing to the front of that bay. The building is 1½ storeys high. Timber-framing survives in the rear north-west wall, but the other walls are constructed of rendered rubble (recently re-rendered), and the roofs are covered with blue slate.

The south front features a plain doorway protected by a simple gabled canopy and flanked by small square 2-light casements. Above the doorway is a small gabled dormer with a 2-light casement, and a 1-light stair-window appears in the upper left corner next to the wing. The gable wall of the wing has a similar 2-light casement on each floor. All these windows have restored joinery without glazing bars. Two chimneys rise from the ridge: one in line with the stair-window and another on the south-west gable.

At the rear, the original 2-bay range displays 2 tiers of square-panelled timber-framing on a rubble plinth, with the eastern half covered by a lean-to, except at the west end where a rubble chimney-stack wall is exposed. Three ceiling beams project from the timber-framing and rest upon the rails. The roof of this section now has 4 small skylights inserted. The west bay contains 2 portions of close-studded timber-framing: against the exposed stonework stands a pair of full-height posts linked by a rail with a single stud above and a modern glazed door below; further west is another close-studded section comprising a sill with a wallpost on its right-hand end, a rail at approximately mid-point of the post, 3 studs below the rail and 2 above, which may formerly have framed a window. Between these sections at ground floor is a modern 3-light casement.

Attached to the north-east end of the house is a range of rubble-built former farm buildings extending to the south-east. The inner portion is a barn and the outer is probably a shippon. The barn roof is slated and the shippon roof is of corrugated iron. Although these structures are largely 19th-century in character, a 17th-century mullion window in an internal cross wall indicates earlier origins.

Interior

The interior contains 3 full cruck-trusses forming 2 bays of approximately equal length. The central truss has a tie-beam, a slightly cambered collar with 3 vertical struts below and V-struts above. Stud-and-plank panelling is tenoned into the soffit of the tie-beam, forming a partition to the former service room, with remains of an original doorway near its north end and a modern inserted doorway at its south end. The north-east cruck-truss appears to have only a tie-beam and a collar, and the south-west one appears to be similar.

Abutting against the south-west side of the latter truss is a thick rubble wall containing a fireplace with stone jambs and a deep oak lintel. On the north-west side of this wall is a deep entrance lobby with a heavy oak Tudor-arched doorway at its outer end. This room has a ceiling of large transverse beams and square-section joists, all of high quality. The beams are chamfered and the joists have grooved decoration. This ceiling is believed to have been inserted in the 17th century, at which time the lower part of the south-west cruck blade was removed to make room for a wooden spiral staircase on that side of the rubble stack.