Summary
Farmhouse, C17 origins or earlier, with multiple later phases.
Reasons for Designation
North Clays Farmhouse is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a small post-medieval farmhouse whose structure, plan and fabric is instructive of its early character and subsequent evolution.
Historic interest:
* for its illustration of sequential phases of development within ongoing vernacular building traditions.
History
Reference to a property named North Claies is made in the Buckhurst Terrier of 1597-1598. This survey of the Buckhurst estate covers a large area of North-East Sussex, including the parish of Hartfield in which North Clays Farm stands.
North Clays Farmhouse is a building of multiple phases and may contain C16 fabric. The primary in-situ fabric may be slightly later but there is evidence of early fabric which is altered or ex-situ also. Later alterations and additions are more legible. There is documentary and fabric evidence of the house being subdivided into two dwellings in the second half of the C19. However, mentions of the farm in local newspapers suggest that it had reverted to a single dwelling by the early C20.
To the north-west of the house is a well, marked on C19 maps and now enclosed in a small brick building of late C20 date.
Details
Farmhouse, C17 origins or earlier, with multiple later phases.
MATERIALS: the principal house is timber framed, the ground floor rebuilt or encased in red brick. Later outshuts are red brick with some use of vitrified headers. The first floor is weather-boarded. The roof is of clay tile and windows and doors are timber.
PLAN: the house faces south, is two storeys high and has an approximately central entrance. It has a two-room plan under a pitched roof with gable ends. There is a stack to either side; that to the west is larger and projects from the gable end, the lower part encased within an outshut; that to the east is a ridge stack, less substantial and contained within the footprint of the east bay. The roof continues as a catslide over outshuts to the rear (north) and west; there are two secondary stacks, one to the north, one to the west.
A central entrance lobby and straight, transverse, stair have been partitioned from the west room. The outshut to the rear contains two interconnecting rooms; it, and the outshut to the west, are reached through the west room.
On the first floor the east room has been partitioned to create a hallway running along the original back wall. This gives access to a winder stair to the attic, adjacent to the east stack, and to one of the two rooms in the north outshut. The other room in the outshut is accessed at the head of the stair. The principal east and west rooms are interconnected to the front of the plan, over the foot of the stair.
EXTERIOR: the front elevation has brick to the ground floor, weather boarding to the first. There is an off-centre timber planked door with segmental head. Brickwork to the east of the door is in Flemish bond; that to the west, extending to the west outshut, is stretcher bond. There are three-light casement windows with glazing bars to either side of the door on the ground and first floors and an additional single-light casement in the west bay on the ground floor. Ground floor windows have segmental heads.
The west and north elevations are dominated by the brickwork of the outshuts, which shows evidence of at least three building campaigns. The brickwork to the rear appears C18 or C19, with a straight joint indicating different builds for each on the two internal rooms. The brickwork to the west is probably C20. There are few window openings, that which there are have joinery broadly consistent with the likely date of the brickwork. There is a stout external stack to the north which shows evidence of being expanded. At the north east corner of the building is a small timber porch of late C20 date.
The east elevation has a blocked doorway, now a window, in the end of the outshut, and a window lighting the room above. East and west gable ends each have a small window lighting the attic.
INTERIOR: the two principal rooms on the ground floor both have exposed ceiling frames. Unchamfered floor joists are jointed into transverse bridging beams with stops and chamfers. The joists rest on top of the girding beams. The internal girding beam in the cross-frame between the two rooms has empty mortice sockets facing into the east room.
The east room has some alteration to the floor frame, most likely relating to the position of a later stair, now removed. A large square fireplace with timber bressumer has been altered, the reveals pierced on both sides with square openings.
The west room has a large stone and brick inglenook fireplace with a timber bressumer. There is a bench seat on one side of the opening, and evidence of a bricked-up oven to the back. Two doorways lead to the west and north outshuts. The north outshut comprises two interconnected rooms of different builds. The room at the east end has a jettied brick hood relating to the external stack on this wall. The west outshut is open to the underside of the roof, which is boarded out with narrow, timber sarking boards. The structural timbers are a mixture of older and reused timbers, and timbers of probable C20 date.
The two principal rooms on the first floor also have exposed ceiling frames but with a structural arrangement at 90 degrees to the one below. Unchamfered floor joists are jointed into axial ceiling beams with stops and chamfers. The arrangement is asymmetric, with the axial beams staggered. The beam to the east is positioned approximately 3 feet from the front wall and the beam to the west being positioned approximately 3 feet from the back wall.
Jowl posts are visible in each corner and in the posts of the cross-frame. Various other framing components are visible. These include some which appear reused or ex-situ, and some which relate to later subdivision and the insertion of the current stair. A fragment of a curved down brace collides with an inserted door in the cross-frame and two more survive partially in the back wall which is now enclosed to the north by the upper rooms under the catslide. The wall plate here includes some empty mortice sockets and the diamond socket of a window mullion. The east room has some notably wide floorboards.
The door to the attic stair is formed of wide, heavy planks and has forged iron strap hinges. The underside of the roof is partially boarded-out in hardboard. There is a central queen post truss and an intermediary collar in each of the two bays. The collars carry clasped purlins. The visible common rafters are of light scantling and meet at the apex without a ridge piece. Additional collars have been nailed across some pairs of rafters near the apex. The apex over the east bay appears to have been rebuilt in parts, with the rafters formed of several jointed timbers. Some rafters also show evidence of missing or altered framework.
Internal doors are mainly plank and batten and of various ages, including those which appear C20, and those which are likely to be pre-C18.
