Building record 1294900000 - KENSHAM FARMHOUSE

Grade II. House. C15, altered C16, with C16-C17 cross wing and C20 extensions and alterations. Mostly rebuilt in brick with some flint, the N. wall retaining timber frame with thin brick infill and plinth. Old tile roofs. Large chimney stack with 2 diagonal shafts of narrow brick at left end; another similar chimney, part rebuilt, to centre of cross wing. L-plan with staircase projection in rear angle. One storey and attic. Front has 2 gabled bays, the ground floor right bay of flint. Brick band course at first floor level. C20 paired barred wooden casements, those to ground floor with cambered heads, those above with segmental heads. Central old board door in C20 gabled brick porch with arched entry. C19 hipped extension of re-used narrow brick to left, with similar casement and later C19 lean-to at left end. Interior: left bay originally an open hall, the central base cruck truss with chamfered arch-braces to collar, and stop-chamfered aisle plate with curved brace along W. side; chimney-stack and floor inserted C16, with massive spine beam and slightly chamfered heavy joists; early C17 panelling in front right room; winder staircase. RCHM I p. 286. MON.15 (B1).
Building survey and dendro-dating carried out in June 1990, suggest the building was constructed as a hall house probably in the late fourteenth century.The earliest structure (bays 1 and 2) is a hall with a central base-cruck truss (T2) and an aisled truss at one end (T3). The medieval structure does not survive at either end of the
building, but it is clear that bays 1 and 2 formed a hall open to the roof. Fragments of wall posts survive in the rear corner of Bay 1 and in the present stair well at the rear of bay 2. The central hall truss (T2) has base crucks and arched braces to the tiebeam. The whole of the arch formed by the cruck blades, braces and small central collar block is chamfered. The front cruck blade has been both truncated by the later front wall and sliced off on top. The rear cruck blade has been cut off just below first-floor level. The building continued beyond T3 but this part was demolished when a new cross wing (bays 3 and 4) was built in the earlier seventeenth century. In the later sixteenth century, the hall was floored with a massively timbered ceiling. The fireplace is also of this date, but may originally have been a smoke-hood rather than a proper chimney. The later building history of the house includes the refronting of bays 1-3 in the eighteenth and again in the twentieth century, the reconstruction of the roof in the eighteenth century, the addition of the rear stairs, the kitchen (bay 4) and storage lean-to areas and a recent office extension. None of the timbers sampled could be dated as they had too few rings. See report for detail (B2).