Description

GREAT COMBERTON

648/0/10023 Shelton Farm House
25-MAR-09

II
Shelton Farm House has C17 origins with later C18 alterations and C19 modifications.

MATERIALS: The farmhouse is largely a box framed timber frame construction, rendered and painted on the rear wing, with C19 ashlar re-facing on the front and garden elevations. It has a gabled clay tile roof with decorative ridges and stone and rendered brick chimney stacks.

PLAN: The house has an irregular evolved plan with a front (east) cross range of three bays and a projecting porch. There is a long rear wing, oriented east - west, which has a further projecting gabled wing on its south side (garden elevation) as well as a number of single storey lean-to structures.

EXTERIOR: The roof has decorative polychrome fish scale tiles on the garden elevation and red plain tiles elsewhere with blue decorative ridges. There are ashlar end stacks to the main range and both end and axial rendered and painted brick stacks to the rear range. The fenestration is a mixture of C18 and C19 sliding sash windows and timber casements. Those windows in the front (east) and garden (south) elevations of the stone clad ranges have decorated projecting flat headed drip moulds supported on carved brackets. The two first floor windows on the south gable of the front range are modern replicas. The front (east) elevation is symmetrical. The ground floor has two four-light sash windows with matching drip moulds flanking a central, single storey, flat roofed stone porch with projecting open stone portico, plinth, decorated string course and solid parapet. There are three four-light sliding sash windows to the upper floor. The rear range has a partly enclosed single storey veranda with plain tile pent roof, supported on timber posts, along the entire north elevation. On the south elevation, the rear range has a single storey, rendered lean-to building with plain tile roof. Towards the west end a modern conservatory occupies the space between the lean-to and the south wing.

INTERIOR: From the earliest phases of the building there are flagstone floors throughout the ground floor of the rear range and several timber frame partitions of plain box framing survive in both the rear and the front range, on both floors and the attics including elements of the original roof structure. There is a large inglenook fireplace with a timber bressumer in the front range, and a stop chamfered cross beam in the dining room. The remains of a brick bread oven survive in the west gable of the rear range. The sixteen light sash window in the north gable and some deep skirtings and cornices in the front range are indicative of C18 renovations. The projecting south wing, the front porch and the re-facing of the front range in ashlar, as well as the partial raising and recovering of the roofs are believed to date from the C19. Other C19 works included renewal of both staircases. There is a highly decorative encaustic tile floor by Maw & Co. in the porch and the master bedroom has a fire surround with decorative polychrome tiles also by Maw & Co. dated c.1875. The smaller fireplaces in the first floor rooms of the rear range are all recent insertions. Despite later alterations parts of the original timber framed roof structures survive. These are best preserved in the front range incorporated into later attic bedrooms. Scorch marks from rush taper lights can be seen on some of the upright roof posts. The roof of the rear range is of later date.

Shelton Farm House is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It retains at its core a substantially intact C17 timber framed building.
* A good example of an evolved farmhouse which reflects changing tastes, expectations and living conditions.

Reasons for Listing

Shelton Farm House is designated for the following principal reasons:

* It retains at its core a substantially intact C17 timber framed building.
* A good example of an evolved farmhouse which reflects changing tastes, expectations and living conditions.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26672398

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)