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Introduction The survey was conducted to record the features of the house in 2007 as a requirement of the planning consent to demolish the house and replace it. The survey was limited to the house, and did not cover the farm buildings. Summary The house is was constructed in the middle of the 19th century, initially as two cottages which were later combined to form one comfortable farmhouse. By 2007, the house was believed to have stood empty for fifty years, was in dilapidated condition, with no electricity, and no water, toilet, sink or bathroom in the main house. |
An early Ordnance Survey map of 1815 showed that the farm had not been built at that date. In the Ordnance Survey map of 1881 the farm complex as it now stands is present, along with a further range of buildings to the north-east, since demolished. To the south-west of the cottages is a pond. The original cottages, which later became one house, and the addition to the north which includes the dairy and bake-house are present. This suggests that the farm was created between 1815 and 1881, and stylistically the middle of this date range seems the most likely, perhaps around 1850. The fact that Welsh slate is used throughout suggests that it is not likely to be earlier than this date since Welsh slate was not widely used until the coming of the railways in the middle years of the nineteenth century.
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Description
The building was originally two semidetached cottages comprising two rooms to each floor; at an unknown later date they were made into one house by knocking connecting doors through the north-south spine wall on both floors and removing the staircase in the western half. The additional rooms to the north of the house (containing a cool store/dairy, wash house and bakery) were probably added at the same time. All of the ceilings were of lime plaster over split laths nailed onto oak joists (150mm x 45mm, 6 inches x 1.75 inches) running north-south, and all were lime or white-washed white, Rooms Room 1, 3.9m x 2.65m (12 feet 10 inches x 8 feet 8 inches). Entered via a doorway in the north wall, this room is thought to have latterly served as a kitchen, and has two further doorways; one each in the south and east walls, all doors are now missing (Plates 5 and 6). The walls on the east, west and north sides were covered with lime plaster and painted with distemper or lime-wash variously yellow ochre, red, green and blue. There is no skirting board. The south wall is built of red brick with a single horizontal bonding timber and is painted in the same colours as the rest of the room, but not plastered. The floor is of red clay paviers (230mm x 120mm, 9 x 4.5 inches) overlaid by linoleum. The northern door frame is of oak and is painted a plum red colour, only the eastern timber jamb and the lintel survive, the embrasure of the doorway is plastered. The eastern jamb retains a drop latch catch indicating the door was hinged on the western side and opened outwards. The door in the south wall was hinged on the eastern side with a drop latch catch surviving on the western jamb. The door in the east wall was hinged on the south side but no catch survives. The window in the west wall has been blocked but retains its timber sill, boarding to the sides and lintel and a simple decorative architrave. Externally there is evidence to indicate that though it was originally a horizontal sash, latterly this was fitted with a casement window, hinged on the north side. The woodwork is all painted white. In the north wall is a fireplace fitted with a cast iron cooking stove (Plate 7). The fireplace and chimney breast are a later insertion and are not bonded fully into the north wall. The fireplace opening has a shallow arch over a shaped iron strap with edge set bricks in two courses. The fire surround has been removed but appears to have been made of wood. This fireplace would have been added after the two cottages were made into a single house, and presumably at the same time as the north door was added. To the west of the fireplace in the alcove formed by the chimney breast is a simple home made cupboard. The only other fixture is a plank shelf attached to the south wall. Due to collapse of the first floor it was possible to see the joists and these showed that there had originally been a staircase on the east side of the room (Plate 8). A trimmer survives with sockets for the top of the string. On the east wall itself a sloping scar in the plaster indicates the line of the string against the wall and by measuring the size of the existing staircase in Room 2 and transferring that layout into this room it places the foot of the staircase in front of the door in the north wall. This indicates that this doorway is secondary, as does the fact that it is finished in a different way to those in the two southern rooms; these both have boarded jambs, the north doorway simply has plastered jambs as does the connecting door from Room 1 into Room 2. This layout shows that the building was built as two back-to-back cottages which explains the two external doors in the east and west walls. Room 2, 3.9m x 2.65m (12 feet 10 inches x 8 feet 8 inches). Entered via Room 1 this room was a small hallway containing the base of the stairs with a separate store room at the eastern end (Plates 9 and 10). The north, east and west walls were lime plastered and painted white, pale green and pink, the south wall was painted but not plastered. Against the west wall the timber staircase remains (Plate 9). Formed simply by boxing in the timber treads and risers with vertical tongue and groove pine boards (140mm wide) the lower end was enclosed by a door hinged on the north side, now missing. Although nothing now survives at the lower end of the staircase it is likely, due to the space available, that at the foot the treads were angled around the inside of the comer. A single iron coat hook indicates that the outer surface was used for hanging clothing. The space beneath the stairs was used as a cupboard; the door here survives and is of vertical pine boards, ledged but not braced, on strap hinges. A simple wooden swivel catch closed the door on the east side. The underneath of the stairs sits uncomfortably across the connecting door from Room 1 , this is because this opening is secondary (Plate 11). The eastern end of the room was closed off to form a walk-in store by the insertion of a single thickness brick wall (at the southern end missing bricks show that the south wall had been painted before this wall was added) with a central doorway (Plate 10). The store was fitted with six timber shelves (pine), three on each side with the lowest being 700mm wide and the upper two 300mm wide. The door, hinged on the north side, is missing but a narrow horizontal space over the door frame was fitted with slats to provide ventilation. It is probable that this served as a pantry or other food store. The window was fitted with horizontal sashes, now missing. The door in the south wall of Room 2 is missing but was hinged on the west side. All the woodwork of the room, including the window is painted white or green. Room 3, 3.9m x 3.45m (12 feet 10 inches x 11 feet 4 inches). Entered from Room 2, all of the walls are plastered, painted and then wallpapered (Plates 12 and 13). An original door in the east wall allowed external access; this door remains in situ but is only visible from the outside as the inner surface has been bricked in (Platel4). The door is vertically boarded in pine and hinged on the north side, set into an oak frame, within an internally boarded embrasure. The door sill is a single slab of York stone. The room has a single window in the south wall, bricked in internally but externally the frame survives and indicates that it held a horizontal sash comprising two six light panels. The floor is of red quarry tiles 150mm x 150mm (6 inches square). The west wall contains a fireplace of brick construction containing a cast iron cooking stove (Plate 15). The stove was made by A R & W Cleaver, Northampton as indicated by this name being cast into the door of the oven (Photograph in archive). The stove appears to be secondary as the depth of the fireplace has been reduced slightly by the insertion of an additional brick backing. The wooden surround partly survives and shows that it was made from pine planks forming the jambs and lintel with a plain mantel shelf above. There is a simple skirting board comprising an un-moulded plank painted plum red. There were no other fixtures or fittings in the room apart from occasional nails in the walls indicating the former presence of pictures. Room 4, 3.9m x 3.45m (12 feet 10 inches x 11 feet 4 inches). Almost identical to Room 3 in reverse, but with an additional window in the west wall (Fig 5). The east, south and west walls were plastered, painted and wallpapered (Plates 16 and I7). The floor is of red quarry tiles 150mm x 150mm (6 inches square). The door in the west wall remains in situ and is vertically boarded, ledged and braced of pine construction, fitted to an oak frame set within a boarded embrasure (Plate 17). The door has the original lock plate and brass knob with a single draw bolt fitted towards the top, all painted in plum coloured oil paint. In the east wall is a fireplace of brick construction that has been narrowed but now contains neither grate or stove (Plate 16). The wooden surround, probably identical to that in Room 3, has been removed. The room has a window in the south and west walls, bricked up internally but externally the frames survive and indicate that they held horizontal sashes comprising two six light panels. There is a simple skirting board comprising an unmoulded plank painted plum red. There were no other fixtures or fittings in the room apart from occasional nails in the walls indicating the former presence of pictures.
Room 8, 3.9m x 2.65m (12 feet 10 inches x 8 feet 8 inches). What originally would have been the top of the stairs, and a small bedroom, a mirror image of Room 5 (Plate 20). After the removal of the staircase the former opening had been boarded over so that the whole room could be used as a bedroom with a small lobby giving access to Room 7. The brick chimney breast rising through the room against the north wall served the secondary fireplace in Room 1 below, but there was no grate on the first floor. Room 9, 1.5m x 2.7m (5 feet x 8 feet 10 inches). This small room formed a lobby serving the north doorway into the house and also to Room 10 immediately to the east (Plate 21). Built of coursed limestone rubble internally, and pitched limestone externally on the west side, it is butt jointed against the north wall of the house indicating that it is secondary and must have been added at the time the north door was added and the two cottages made into a single house. The wall on the east side is of red brick, and neither side was plastered, just painted. The floor was of red clay paviers (230mm x 120mm, 9 x 4.5 inches). The roof was almost entirely missing, but enough remained to suggest that it had a shallow fall to the west from the western side of the pitched roof covering the adjacent room (Plate 21). The roof timbers were of pine and covered in Welsh slate. A window in the west wall had been blocked and only enough timber remained to indicate that it was pine, but not enough to suggest whether it was sash or casement. The door in the north end of the lobby was missing but had been hinged on the western jamb and opened inwards. Room 10, 4.25m x 3.15m (14 feet x 10 feet 4 inches). Built of coursed limestone rubble on the interior of the east and north sides (the stone work is pitched on the exterior of the east side), brick on the west and utilising the north wall of the house on the south side. Entered through a doorway in the west wall the room originally had a second door in the east wall, later made into a window (Plate 4). The door in the west wall is vertically slatted indicating that it was important to have good ventilation (Plate 22). The north and south sides of the room were fitted with timber shelves supported on brick piers suggesting a store room; the good ventilation and the position on the north side of the house indicate that this may have been used as a dairy. The floor is of red clay paviers (230mm x 120mm, 9 x 4.5 inches). The roof was pitched and made of pine supporting Welsh slate. The ceiling had been plastered, though all that survived were the nails with which the laths had been fitted to the underside of the ceiling joists. Room 11, 2.6m x 2.45m (8 feet 6 inches x 8 feet). This small room at the northern end of the later range comprises a bread oven, cast iron range, water heater and stone sink (Plate 23). The north wall is of pitched limestone externally though it is coursed internally, and coursed on the south and west walls; the eastern wall is of red brick. The room is entered from the west through a door that was hinged on the northern side of the oak jamb; the door is missing. The floor is of red bricks laid flat. In the north wall is a window fitted with two six light casements, the eastern fixed, the western opening and hinged on the central mullion (Plate 24). On the outer face of the wall the window has a shallow segmental lintel of alternating red and blue bricks, the only decorative use of brick on the farm house building. Beneath the window is a large shallow stone sink supported on two brick piers. The lead pipe draining water from the sink leads out through the wall, but there is no indication of a pipe bringing water in, and it is thought that the water may have been supplied from a hand pump situated on the southern wall of the farmyard and marked on both the 1881 and 1925 Ordnance Survey maps. In the north-east corner of the room is a red brick "copper" or water heater (Plate 25). The curved wall of the structure contains the stoke-hole with a cast iron door and ash box at the lower level, above which the copper or cast iron cauldron was situated. The smoke from the stoke-hole was vented via a flue on the west side, now collapsed to the level of the top of the cauldron, but originally venting at the apex of the gable on the north side. This feature is secondary as none of the brickwork is bonded into the north wall. In the east wall is the bread oven and cast iron range which are contemporary with the room (Plate 25). The range would have been used to create hot coals and ash which would have been shoveled into the oven and the door then closed while the brickwork heated up. After a given amount of time, the coals and ashes would have been raked out and the bread placed in the oven to bake. The oven is made entirely of red brick and has a typical oval shape in plan, with a shallow vaulted roof (Plate 26). The flue rises above the stove and would have vented at the apex of the roof which was made of pine and covered in Welsh slate. Room 12, 1.4m x 1. 15m (4 feet 6 inches x 3 feet nine inches). This small room is accessed from the north side through a doorway fitted with an oak frame (Plate 27). The door, now missing, was hinged on the eastern side. The room, though very small, was plastered and whitewashed which suggests that it may have been a privy as it would be unusual to plaster a simple small store room in this location (all other rooms in this range are plastered). Unfortunately there were no internal fixtures and fittings to support this hypothesis, and the room was filled with rubbish. This made it difficult to examine the floor, which may have had differing surfaces indicating the presence of a seat. Its use remains unclear; only a few metres away there is a brick privy on the east side of the nearest barn, in which evidence of use does survive. It seems odd that there would be two privies so close to each other, so the small, plastered room may have been for storage of dry materials, its position at the back of the bread oven, and later, the copper, would have kept the room warm and dry. |
Conclusions New Buildings Farm barns and cottages date from the nineteenth century, most likely circa 1850. They were purpose built in a single phase, though the cottages were later converted into a single farmhouse with additional rooms being added to the north side to make the complex more comfortable and self-sufficient. Although the barns have not been recorded as part of the present exercise, they are an integral part of the complex and were briefly examined during the recording exercise to place the cottages in the context of the whole farm. The cottages were placed at the south-east corner of the group giving them immediate access to the barns and stockyard but also allowing a garden to be laid out on the eastern side. Unusually there is no access directly into the barns from the cottage side meaning that people had to walk either around the eastern side and into the barns from the north, or westwards and into the stockyard from the south. Constructed of local limestone they were well built, and by the standards of the day were well fitted internally. The use of pitched stone on many of the farm barns and in the later addition to the house may be indicative of the work of an individual local builder as this type of pitched or herring-bone work is found in other buildings locally (pers, comm. Brian Giggins - archaeology officer of the local council at the time). Phase One. The cottages originally comprised a simple semi-detached arrangement with access to each building from the east and west sides. In each half the southern room was the principal living area as this contained the fireplace on both floors, comprising a cast iron stove for cooking as well as providing heat on the ground floor and a small grate in the bedrooms above. The northern rooms on the ground floor were probably used for storage and also contained the foot of the staircase. There were no fireplaces in these rooms. Upstairs the layout was similar, with the southern room benefiting from a fireplace but the northern room was unheated. It is possible that each was occupied by a single farm worker rather than a family, though by nineteenth century standards the cottages were not exceptionally small. Indeed, the standards of construction are good throughout, with architrave around all of the windows, skirting boards in the front rooms, good tiled floors and cast iron stoves. The windows were all fitted with horizontal sash arrangements. The layout is entirely symmetrical apart from the window arrangements; on the western side there is an extra window on both ground and first floor in the southern rooms, almost certainly so that the occupant of that half could keep an eye on the livestock in the farmyards. Phase two At an unknown date, but before 1881, the cottages were converted into a single house, and also benefited from the addition of a small cool store/dairy with a wash-house and bakery to the north. This implies that a family rather than farm workers lived here at this stage, and in doing so needed to be provided with such equipment as to be relatively self-sufficient given the location some way out of the village. The central spine wall of stone which formerly divided the two halves was breached to provide a link; two staircases were no longer needed, so the westernmost was removed. The top of the staircase was boarded over and a wooden screen erected to make a small lobby giving access to both bedrooms in the western half. A new doorway through the north wall gave direct access to the new dairy and wash-house/bakery and at the same time a third fireplace was provided in the house giving it a kitchen, front room and parlour. The insertion of the screen wall in the east end of the room containing the staircase provided a pantry fitted with wooden shelves. Both of the original cottage doors were retained, that to the west giving access to the farmyard, that to the east the farmhouse kitchen garden which still retains in fragmentary condition a stone boundary wall to keep livestock out. At this stage the farmhouse must have been a comfortable home with all necessary fittings to provide a good standard of living. It is not known for certain when the house was last occupied. Perhaps it was at the time it was sold in 1963, but there are no modernisations and there is no indication that electricity was supplied to the house, though a bracket attached to the north-west corner indicates that it was supplied to the farm. Internally there is no water, toilet, sink or bathroom in the main house, so what was at the end of the nineteenth century a comfortable farmhouse had become an old fashioned, low standard and probably un-lettable house. Following the Second World War expectations were much higher, and electricity and running water were no longer luxuries. Also the farming economy had changed, increasing mechanisation needed fewer workers and more people had cars. The previously isolated farm buildings could easily have been visited night and morning by the farmer who could live elsewhere. It appears not to have been worth the expense of modernising the building and so it was abandoned and then bricked up to avoid vandalism. Although some of the interiors have suffered some deliberate damage (all internal doors are missing and some fireplaces have been removed or damaged), this bricking up largely preserved the building until the failure of the slates allowed water to rot the timbers of the roof and floors. The farmhouse is a good example of a purpose built, (though it can not be considered a model farm) structure at a time when investment in the farming economy was relatively high. Converted from two cottages to become a farmhouse soon after completion, it allowed a family to live there in some comfort. Its relatively isolated position coupled with the changing farming economy, social expectations and lack of investment led to its abandonment sometime during the middle of the twentieth century. |
Survey photographs (plates) |
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Desk Based Assessment
External description. The cottage, or farmhouse, lies on the south-eastern side of the farm complex. It sits in a shallow valley sloping down to the south. The farmhouse is a rectangular building (8.95m x 7.0m [29 feet 4 inches x 23 feet]) built of coursed limestone rubble with dressed quoins, covered by a hipped Welsh slate roof (Plate 1). The south side has four windows, two to each floor, symmetrically placed with stone sills and red brick segmental arches over. The western side overlooks the farmyard and has a doorway in the southern end giving access to the western side of the building; the same side has two windows to each floor (Plate 2). The north face of the building has only a single doorway and no windows. The eastern face is similar to the western, with a door but only one window on the ground and first floors (Plate 3). To the rear (north) of the farmhouse is a single storey range built of limestone rubble walls laid in a pitched fashion externally, and coursed internally along with some areas built of red brick (Plate 4). The corners of the walls are of dressed limestone and the window lintels are of brick forming a decorative pattern by using alternate coloured bricks. This range contains a small store, washhouse and bread oven, a larger cool storeroom/dairy and a corridor/lobby. There is no direct link into the farm yard or buildings; access must have been northwards around the eastern side of the barns or southwards through a hand gate at the south-west corner of the farmhouse. The house has been described as it is at present, an interpretation of the phasing and alterations will be made below. The house has not been inhabited for approximately fifty years; there are no indications that it was ever supplied with running water or electricity.
Internal description. The rooms of the house have been given numbers and also names, though the latter are modern interpretations and will not necessarily be the names used by the former inhabitants. All external walls are built of stone throughout their full thickness; the north-south spine wall is built in the same way. The east-west internal dividing walls are built of a single thickness of red brick. 
Rooms 5, 6, 7 and 8, first floor. None of the upper floor area was accessible due to collapse but the basic room layout follows that of the ground floor, and by measuring through holes and estimating the sizes