Description

SY 29 NW WIDWORTHY

4/141 Stockers Farmhouse
-

- II*

Farmhouse. Early - mid C16, with major later C16 and C17 improvements, the service
end was enlarged in the C18, some C19 and C20 modernisations. Plastered and colour-
washed walls, mostly local stone and flint rubble including some cob; stone rubble
stacks topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof, part replaced with corrugated
iron.
Plan and development: 4-room-and-through-passage plan house built across the
hillslope and facing east. At the left (north) end is a room with a gable-end
stack, now used as a sitting room. Between it and the passage is an unheated room,
the present kitchen. The other side of the passage is the former hall with its
stack backing onto the passage and a newel stair rising to the front. The left
(south) end room, the former inner room, has a gable-end stack.
This is a house with a long and complex structural history. The original early -mid
C16 house occupied only the former hall, passage and present kitchen. It was open
to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. It was
probably a 2-room-and-through-passage house with the former hall where it is now and
a service room where the kitchen is now. Plaster from largely superficial C19 and
C20 modernisations is hiding much of the evidence of the development of the house
through the later C16 and early C17. The hall fireplace was probably added in the
mid-late C16. It is not clear when the service end room/present kitchen was floored
over since the crossbeam there is a C20 replacement. In the early C17 an inner room
was added. Maybe the stack there was added a little later, when the hall was
floored. Thus, by the mid C17 the farmhouse had an inner room kitchen, the hall was
a parlour and the service end room was a dairy or buttery. In the C18 the northern
end was added to the dairy/buttery as a stable or agricultural outhouse. It was
brought into domestic use circa 1960 - 70. House is 2 storeys with secondary
outshots to rear of the southern end, the passage, hall and inner room kitchen.
Exterior: irregular 4-window front of mostly C19 and C20 casements with glazing
bars although the half dormer left of centre is an oak flat-faced mullion window
(maybe as old as the C18) and it contains rectangular panes of leaded glass. The
section left of the passage doorway breaks forward slightly from the rest. The
passage front doorway is roughly central and it contains a C20 door. There is a
secondary doorway towards the left end (into the inner room kitchen) and it contains
a C19 plank door. The main roof is gable-ended, the right end was half-hipped
before the stack was inserted here. A photograph in the NMR of circa 1960 shows the
house before the right end room was brought into domestic use.
Interior: the passage rear doorway has what appears to be a plastered over jamb of
a shoulder-headed doorway. If there is such a doorway here it is early - mid C16.
There is a late C16 - early C17 oak crank-headed doorframe from the passage which is
chamfered with straight cut stops. The fireplace here is blocked by a C19
fireplace. The partition between hall and inner room/kitchen appears to be a
plastered oak plank-and-muntin screen. The inner room kitchen crossbeams has deep
chamfers and step stops. The kitchen fireplace is blocked but its large size is
evident and the oven housing projects into the room. Below the passage the former
dairy/buttery - present kitchen has a C20 replacement crossbeam and the end room
(present sitting room) has roughly-chamfered crossbeams. On the first floor the
size of the original house is defined by hip crucks. The solid end walls into which
they were set have been replaced by timber-framed crosswalls and the cruck posts now
rest on crossbeams. The roofspace is inaccessible although the farmer reports that
the roof timbers and thatch between the hip crucks is heavily sooted from the open
hearth fire. Any intermediate truss is buried in the crosswall between hall and
passage chambers. The inner room roof is carried on a side-pegged jointed cruck
truss and the service end extension roof is carried on A-frame trusses.
This is an attractive and interesting farmhouse. It is important because it retains
the remains of a small late medieval house, a rare survival. Although much evidence
is hidden behind C19 and C20 plaster it seems that a great deal of C16 and C17
carpentry and other detail survives intact.

Listing NGR: SY2121497210

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17546896

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)