Cragg Hall Farm

Details

STAINTON DALE

563/0/10010 OLD SCHOOL LANE 26-JAN-06 Ravenscar Cragg Hall Farm

II DESCRIPTION: Farmhouse, probably late C17 with adaptations and alterations through the C18 and C19. Sandstone, mainly laid to courses, with pan tile roof and brick stacks. Plan: derived from longhouse tradition, now referred to as 'false longhouse'. One and a half storey to the west forming the house with washhouse at the western end, single storey to the east containing the cross passage and gable entry byre. The house part of the range has two cells, each with its own stairs to rooms above. Blocked doorways show that the upper rooms of the house, washhouse and cross passage attic were formally interconnected. Exterior, North façade: Two bay house with horizontal sliding sashes at first floor. Ground floor has horizontal sliding sash to right and a three over three vertical sliding sash to left with small fixed light fire window to far left. Left gable wall with stone flagged coping and main stack. Second stack to centre, for inner room. Horizontal building break at ground floor lintel height with slightly better quality masonry above. Single bay outbuilding to right of a building break with single, reduced, ground floor window. Stone flagged coping to left gable wall with low brick stack. Cross passage to left of house covered by single storey outshut with a single window. Byre to left with stone buttress and stone flagged coping to gable. Exterior,South façade: House part of the range has only one opening on the south side: a single small fixed light for the inner room. To the left, at the foot of the inner room stairs, there is a low blocked doorway. To the left of this is the doorway to the washhouse with a small outshut to its left. Entry to the house is via the cross passage to the right of the house. The external door to the cross passage is C20. To the right there is a small four light window. Vertical building breaks between the cross passage and both the byre and house. Building break between the house and washhouse less clear. No apparent horizontal building break to the house to correspond to that on the north façade. Exterior, east gable end (byre): Stable door to left of centreline, unglazed attic window to centre. Exterior, west gable end (washhouse): Small blocked window at attic level to left of central stack. Small C20 fixed light set in blocked doorway to outshut on the right. Building break between outshut and washhouse. Interior, cross passage: Concrete floor. Exposed ceiling joists, of which at least one appears riven, supporting broad planks with rolled edge moulding. Planked doors to both outshut and house, that to the house using narrow planks with bevelled edges. Interior, fore room: Stone flagged floor, exposed ceiling joists with alternate joists riven and sawn, the sawn joists being chamfered. Broad floor boards above with rolled edge detail. Similar broad planks with rolled edge detail used for the screen between the hearth and the door to the cross passage, and for the timber partition with doors for the staircase. Hearth with small cast iron range. Salt box to left. Interior, Inner parlour: Raised timber floor. Exposed ceiling joists, some roughly chamfered supporting narrow floor boards with rolled edge mouldings. Timber partition for staircase with narrow planks with bevelled edge, (similar to those used for the door between the cross passage and fore room). Door between inner parlour and foot of fore room stairs is also planked but uses narrow planks with rolled edge moulding. Interior, washhouse: Brick and concrete surround for a solid fuelled copper built in front of earlier hearth. Interior, byre: Cobble floor. Remains of timber stalls.

SOURCE: For comparative examples see: Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1987 "Houses of the North York Moors".

HISTORY: Construction of yeomen farmsteads following and developing the medieval longhouse tradition (where animals and people shared the roof of a linear building range) continued on the North York Moors up until about the mid 18th century. From the late 17th century, existing and new longhouses developed piecemeal, improving the standard of accommodation for the farmer and increasing the degree of separation from the animals. False longhouses were those examples which were built with separate entrances for people and animals, rather than being adapted from those where the entrance to the byre was originally from the cross passage. Longhouse farmsteads were frequently adapted as the needs and the wealth of the farmers changed over time. House parts were often raised and extended. Outbuildings could come into domestic occupation or be returned to auxiliary use. Accommodation was frequently subdivided to provide for widows or joint heirs (as North York Moors yeomen frequently did not employ primogeniture inheritance), and then recombined at a later date.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Cragg Hall Farm is an example of the continuation of the North York Moors vernacular tradition of longhouse construction. The series of modifications that are still identifiable by the various building breaks in the masonry, blocked openings and styles of internal timberwork, all eloquently demonstrate the evolutionary nature of longhouses through the 17th to 19th centuries. It is this succession of alterations which make Cragg Hall Farm of particular special architectural and historical interest, showing how adaptable the longhouse tradition was to changing tastes and circumstances.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

494324

Legacy System:

LBS

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