Claypits Farmhouse (EHER 1480)

Mid 15th century open hall house. A heritage assessment undertaken in 2020 identified seven phases of the house.

Monument description derived from merging EHER 1480 and 25752. Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import: Claypit's Farm [NAT]. <1> Claypits Farmhouse. Mid 15th century or earlier open hall house with cross-wings, altered in 16thc and 17thc. (RCHM 32). Grade II. <2> Claypits Farm, house and barn, 600 yards south-east of the church. The house is roughly rectangular on plan and has a late 17th century addition at the back adjoining it on the west. The north front has a slight projection at each end and a porch near the middle. The front door has moulded oak panels. Inside the building there is one old oak battened door. The barn is of six bays, with two projecting porches on the north side. <3> 2020. Heritage assessment. The original timber-framed cross-wing house listed as a 'mid-15th century or earlier open hall house with cross-wings'. The eastern wing was evidently designed as a service wing as its ceiling contains empty mortises for a missing division between a pantry and buttery but the joists of both wings lack evidence of under-built jetties and contain ostensibly original re-used timber in a manner rarely found before the 17th century. The presence of soffit-tenon joints cannot pre-date the mid 15th century and without further inspection the age and nature of this structure remains uncertain. A single-storied mid 17th century timber-framed extension behind the parlour cross-wing with tall-sectioned ceiling joists and a good original 'inglenook' cooking fireplace retaining two salt recesses. This is likely to have been designed as an attached kitchen or possibly a second hall for a semi-independent member of the household. A 17th or possibly early 18th century single-storied brick structure laid in English Bond with a clasped-purlin roof and a timber-framed eastern gable incorporating a diagonal primary wall brace. The interior formerly contained a loft at eaves level and there is evidence of a blocked window and loft door in the internal plaster of the same eastern gable. The remains of a much altered original chimney adjoin the western gable and this structure was probably a bake-house and brew-house initially. The RCHME description of 1916 refers to it as a brew-house. A brick lean-to of the late 18th or more probably the early 19th century built in Flemish Bond against the western exterior of the parlour cross-wing, now used as a utility room and probably designed as a storage room. Its interior preserves the early roughcast external plaster of the parlour wing. An ostensibly 18th or early 19th century link between the earlier kitchen on the east and the brew-house to the west. The ceiling contains a fine re-used 16th century roll-moulded principal joist. A small two-storied addition built between 1876 and 1896 and the present 'porch' in the south-eastern corner of the house is a late 20th century glazed conservatory. <4> See also: <5>