Stone Cross Farmhouse

Details

TQ 53 NW SPELDHURST STONE CROSS S

7/595 Stone Cross Farmhouse

GV II

Former farmhouse. Mid/late C15 with early C17 improvements, refurbished in the mid C19, some C20 modernisation. Timber-framed. Ground floor level is underbuilt with Flemish bond red brick with some burnt headers. Framing above is hung with peg-tile. Brick stacks, the oldest one on a stone base, and brick chimneyshafts. Peg-tile roof.

Plan and Development: L-plan house faces south. The main block has a 2-room plan. Main living room to left heated by an axial stack backing onto the entrance hall-cum-dining room to right. Small service rooms are partitioned off to rear of the living room and stack. 2-room plan crosswing at right (east) end projects forward. Rear kitchen and front parlour both have outer (right side) lateral stacks. Former lean-to bakehouse on left (east) end with end stack.

The present layout is essentially the result of C19 and C20 modernisations. House originated as a 3-room-and-through-passage plan open hall house, maybe of Wealden type. Plan has been somewhat altered at ground floor level, it shows more clearly on the first floor. The hall occupied the present entrance hall and extended into the living room a short distance. That short distance was originally the through passage. The hall was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The rest (the western end) of the living room was the service end and was floored from the beginning. The inner room end was also probably floored from the beginning with the solar or master chamber at first floor level. Some of the original structure remains here but it was much rebuilt in the early C17 as a parlour crosswing. Both rooms in the crosswing have stacks but since neither have exposed fireplaces it is not clear which were heated although it seems likely that the front room was. The hall fireplace and floor may have been inserted a little earlier, in the late C16 or early C17. The stack originally served the hall, the present entrance hall, but it was turned round in the C19 or early C20. At that time the front doorway moved to its present position and the present living room was made by removing the crosswall at the lower end of the hall.

House is 2 storeys with attics in the roofspace of the main block.

Exterior: Irregular 2:1-window front. Most of the first floor windows are C19 casements. The rest are C20 including the canted bay windows to left (serving the living room) and at the front end of the crosswing. These bay windows have diamond panes of leaded glass. The others have rectangular panes of leaded glass including the extra one at ground floor level left end to the lean-to extension there. Front doorway is at the right end of the main block. It contains a C20 2-panel door behind a contemporary gabled porch. Similar windows to rear although some here contain diamond panes of old leaded glass. Rear doorway to the back of the old passage and it contains a C19 panelled door under a flat hood on shaped brackets. Main block roof and crosswing roof are gable-ended.

Interior: Is largely the result of C19 and C20 modernisations although where early carpentry is exposed it is relatively well preserved. At ground floor level there is evidence of the medieval house service end in the room behind the living room. Here the first floor is supported on joists of massive scantling including the gap (defined by a trimmer) for a stair or ladder access to the first floor. (It is filled by late C16/early C17 hollow chamfered joists.) The basic frame of the crosswall to the hall is also exposed here and contains an original oak door frame; an elliptical headed arch with moulded surround. Its position suggests it was one of a pair into buttery and pantry this end and it may be that the axial wall between the back room and front living room is original. If so (it is plastered over like the ceiling in the living room) it would be a very rare survival in a medieval house of this status. On the hall side of the crosswall a moulded and brattished rail is exposed to rear at about present first floor level.

On the first floor there is evidence of the original crosswall at the upper (crosswing) end of the hall although the close studding at ground floor level appears to be early C17. At the other end, the original service end, the tie beam and end posts remain but the chamber that end has been enlarged over the passage to the back of the stack. Anomalies between the hall and service end might be taken of evidence for Wealden form but it is not conclusive. The medieval roof, as far as can be seen, appears to be relatively intact. It is 4 bays, 2 over the formerly open hall, and one each end. It is of tie beam trusses with crown posts. The closed trusses each end of the hall had curving down braces which show at the former service end. The open truss over the hall is missing its arch braces but the massive tie beam has a hollow chamfered soffit, octagonal crown post with moulded cap and base, and 4-way up braces (the longitudinal ones now removed). A-frame common rafters of large scantling. Roofspace over the hall was inaccessible at the time of this survey but the timbers are said to be smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire.

Evidence of the late C16/early C17 flooring of the hall comes from the small room behind the stack. Here exposed joists across the former passage are chamfered with runout stops onto a chamfered and step stopped beam. No carpentry is exposed in the entrance hall, the former hall. The fireplace was also blocked here. It has been partly dug out but not completely and only some of the stone back shows.

Little carpentry is exposed in the early C17 crosswing. The partition between the entrance hall and rear room (the present kitchen) is close-studded and the owners have photographs of the front end stripped of its tile hanging and showing that it to is of close-studded framing. The fireplaces are blocked and the only exposed beam in the front parlour is chamfered with step stops. Front section of the roof is 2 bays of tie beam trusses with clasped side purlins and windbraces.

Stone Cross Farmhouse is an interesting medieval hall house close to another, Stone Cross (q.v.).

Listing NGR: TQ5225138989

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

440798

Legacy System:

LBS

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