Summary
An early C18 farmhouse with C19 south-west wing.
Reasons for Designation
Lower Farmhouse, Newbold Grounds, an early-C18 farmhouse, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural Interest: it is an example of a substantial early C18 farmhouse built in the Northamptonshire vernacular style of the period, of local materials and displaying high levels of craftsmanship.
* Intactness: despite some external alterations to openings and loss of interior detail, the building’s plan form and fabric, including the roof structure, remains substantially intact.
* Historical interest: it is of interest for its early C18 date, and for its proximity to the deserted medieval village of Newbold.
History
Lower Farmhouse was listed in 1987 as an early C18 farmhouse with a C20 garage extension to the west. The house appears to have undergone several phases of expansion and contraction since it was first built. Both the 1885 and 1900 Ordnance Survey maps show the building occupying the same square footprint as shown on maps today, but with additions to east and west. The additions have now been lost, but their survival into the C20 is confirmed by a mid-C20 aerial photograph which shows the house with a two-storey wing to the west, and a single-storey structure, possibly a lean-to, attached to the east elevation. Fragments of stonework extending west from the north elevation, butted against the quoins of the main house, may represent a fragment of surviving fabric of the west wing. This residual fabric also formed part of the stonework of the north end of the single storey, domed roof garage referred to in the 1987 List description, the rest of which was brick built. This structure collapsed in 1987 and was later replaced with a lean-to timber built single storey structure, which has recently been demolished. The photograph also shows the surviving C19 south wing. The interior of the house was extensively refurbished between the late 1960s and 2009.
Details
MATERIALS: coursed squared ironstone with lighter coloured ironstone quoins and dressings with a tiled pitched roof. The C19 wing is of brick with a tiled roof. The east chimney stack is also brick.
PLAN: the original C18 house was L-shaped, but now forms a U shape with the C19 wing to the west. There is a taller stair tower between the two south wings. There are chimney stacks rising above the gable ends of the main north range, and one to the north end of the C19 south wing.
EXTERIOR: the house is of two storeys with attics. The front range has a pitched roof, with stone-coped gables and kneelers; the C18, south wing has a hipped roof, and the C19 wing a pitched roof. The main north elevation is symmetrical, its central entrance with a stone lintel and pronounced keystone, and a four-panelled door. This is flanked by modern, double glazed, tripartite mullioned and transomed casement windows, slightly enlarged, with a storey band immediately above the lintels. There are three mullioned casements to the first floor, also double glazed, the centre with two lights, the outer with three. Both gable ends have small blocked windows to the south of the chimney stack. To the south, both wings have first-floor windows above ground-floor window openings which have been enlarged into doorways opening onto steps. The stair tower has windows at mezzanine and attic level.
INTERIOR: in the main, front range an axial beam supports floor joists across the two front rooms. Fireplaces in both rooms have been reconstructed, and the wall between the east room and the original central passage has been removed to create a single space. Support is provided for the axial beam by a post standing on a stone plinth. This room opens onto a small hall and the stair tower, to the east of which, in the C18 wing, is a living room with a transverse beam supporting floor joists and a brick fireplace.
The stair tower contains a modern staircase rising to the first floor. No historic features survive in the first-floor rooms, except for the chimney breast in the west room of the main front range. The attics are lined, but the roof structure is substantially visible to collar height. The roofs of both the main range and south-east wing are of principal rafter construction, with collars and staggered butt purlins.
