Summary
A late-C17 timber-framed house with later modifications and extensions.
Reasons for Designation
Church Farm, Worlington, a late-C17 vernacular house is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: the farmhouse retains a significant proportion of historic fabric pre-dating 1700;
* Interior: the earliest plan-form remains virtually intact and notable features including the stack, doors, windows, floors and winder stair which survive throughout most of the farmhouse;
* Group value: the farmhouse is located in close proximity to Grade I listed medieval Church of All Saints' (NHLE 1037585) with which it has group value and offers it additional interest.
History
Church Farm, Worlington is a late-C17 timber-framed house, with later modifications and extensions. The brickwork forming the southern gable appears to represent a single phase of construction, suggesting that the southernmost rear extension was built at the same time. The brick skin of the front elevation appears to be a later modification possibly to gentrify the farmhouse, or simply to add a more robust finish to the timber framing.
The extensions to the rear appear to have been built before the brick encasing of the front elevation. The first edition Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1881 shows a building of similar plan form to the existing building, suggesting that the extensions are at least mid C19 in date. The use of unhorned sashes to the front elevation imply the modifications predate 1850, but this is not a hard and fast rule.
Details
BUILDING AND DATE:
A late-C17 timber-framed house with later modifications and extensions.
MATERIALS
Timber-framing with wattle and daub infill, later encased in brick on the front elevation and southern gable. The northern gable is rendered. To the rear, a brick and flint plinth supports a rendered and painted rear wall with later extensions built in brick and partially rendered. A corrugated metal roof is laid over thatch, the latter exposed in various places within the roof space. There are timber sash windows to the front elevation and later, timber casements in the rear extension and gables.
PLAN
Lobby-entrance plan with a large central stack and later extensions to the rear including a timber-framed stair tower. The first edition Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1882 shows a building of similar plan form, suggesting that the extensions are at least mid C19 in date.
EXTERIOR
Church Farm is a four-bay, two-storey house with an elaborate central brick stack surmounted by four individual angle-set chimneys. A protruding, gabled porch sits left of centre with a late-C18 or early-C19, four-panelled timber door. Eight over eight timber sash windows, under flat brick arches, occupy each bay of the first floor, and a horned sash at the north end of the ground floor. A small casement window is positioned in each of the north and south gable ends. To the rear, the two-storey, southernmost extension retains three variations of timber-framed casement windows set either side of a tall, tapering, brick stack which rises as high as the ridge of the main building. This extension is built of red brick with rendered and painted, slightly recessed walls between the brick quoins and stack. The smaller, single-storey, brick-built extension to the northern end is roofed in red-clay pantiles with a brick stack to the northern end and a small blocked window in the rear wall.
INTERIOR
The interior of the house is a basic two-room plan, one either side of the central stack. Accessed via the main front entrance, a small lobby area provides access to the two main ground-floor rooms. A chamfered and stopped spine beam runs central to the building at ground floor, that to the northern room has been boxed in but that to the southern room displays chamfers with lambs tongue stops. The tiled fire surround in the northern room is of 1920s style but the central stack remains intact, despite having been partially boxed in. The southern end of the building has been extended to add a small room and storage area at both the ground floor and first floor, probably at the time the gable was rebuilt in brick and the southern rear extension was added. A small, rectangular lobby to the rear of the chimney provides access to the rear, two-storey extension and the oak, winder stair. Wide, oak floor boarding survives throughout the ground floor of the original building except in the front lobby, just inside the main entrance; here clay quarry tiles are laid diagonally. The ground floor of the rear extension features the fireplace serviced by the tall brick chimney. The smaller, single-storey extension houses a simple brick fireplace with a copper in the north-west corner of the room. The north-east corner sits at an oblique angle to accommodate a particularly thick wall, the reason for which is unclear.
The oak, winder stair is located in the rear stair tower, where vertical timbers, evident behind the wallpaper, indicate corner posts of the timber framing.
On the first-floor landing, timber panelling incorporating cupboards is fitted into the side of the central stack. The ‘L’ -shaped hinges here are characteristic of the late-C17, a date compatible with the panelling. The rooms to either side display bridging beams, most of which are boxed in, but those to either side of the central stack display a simple chamfer. In the south-east corner of the southern room, within a small cupboard, a blocked, leaded-light casement window, presumably used originally to take borrowed light from the front of the building to the back, retains a horizontal spring latch characteristic of the late C17. Timbers beneath the wallpaper here suggest the window is set within the studding of the frame.
A horizontal timber, running at ceiling height along the rear wall of the northern room and the front wall of the southern room, provides evidence of wall plates of the timber frame. Further evidence of framing can be seen in vertical corner posts, evident in the rear corners of the stair tower and in the corners of the cupboard above the ground floor front lobby. Linear patterns, evident beneath the wallpaper, indicates the survival of studding throughout much of the building, but the timber frame is explicitly evident in the stair tower walls leading up to the loft floor where vertical, close studding with diagonal braces remains evident, free of plaster or wallpaper.
Wide, timber plank and batten doors with lift latches, many with leaf-shaped ends, and round headed strap hinges remain in use particularly in the utility areas; access to the loft stairs; access to the cellar; in the openings to built in storage areas and between various sections of the loft space. These would reinforce a suggested C17 date. The doors of the principal rooms on both the ground and first floor are more elaborate raised and fielded four panelled doors with ‘L’ shaped hinges.
Within the steeply pitched roof space, the rafters are visible throughout; many with natural twine twisted and tied at regular intervals to anchor the thatch. Between the rafters, the roof is plastered and painted but reed is exposed at various points where either plaster or boarding has moved. The roof space has been ceiled at the height of the collar beam but purlins are visible within the southern room. The tapering shaft of the chimney is also visible in a small room at the front of the loft. At right angles to the principal roof is that of the stair tower where close studding in the gable and in the wall adjacent to the timber, winder stair provides detailed evidence of the buildings structure.
The single-roomed basement again provides clear evidence of the survival of the timber structure standing upon a flint and painted plinth. A chamfered and stopped beam is exposed here as is a drainage gully running across the width of the room. A metal casement window lights the room from the front and a blocked ventilation grille is evident in the rear wall, presumably blocked when the single-storey extension was added to the rear of the building.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES
A garden wall attached to the southern end of the house runs along the edge of the lane with a gate leading to the rear and small hatch opening into an attached outhouse. Attached to the northern gable of the cottage is a single-storey farm building, possibly stables, forming the western range of a rectangular planned yard. These buildings are built in a combination of brick and flint with red-clay pantile roofs. Some are subdivided into stables others have open fronts. These subsidiary features are not of special architectural or historic interest and are not included within the designation.
