Garnett House, with attached walls, gate piers and steps, Strickland Ketel, Cumbria

Summary

Farmhouse, C18 incorporating a C16 front range including a medieval tower.

Description

Farmhouse, C18 incorporating a C16 front range including a medieval tower.

MATERIALS: of stone rubble construction, part rendered to the farmhouse; slate roofs.

PLAN: the roughly square house (the western part being slightly recessed) consists of rectangular front and rear ranges, each of two rooms with a stair hall to the rear; the south-east part of the front range comprises a two-storey thick-walled building interpreted as a tower.

EXTERIOR: the two-storey house occupies an elevated position at the head of the farmyard, facing roughly south. All windows are small-pane replacement casement frames. The south elevation has four first floor windows of varying sizes, beneath a pitched roof of graduated slate with end chimney stacks; the irregular ridge line suggests the presence of an early roof structure. There is a shallow step back to the elevation between the second and third windows. Stone steps lead up to a central entrance with a timber Gothic porch, flanked to each side by large window openings with stone sills and drip moulds. Attached to the left and set back is a small, single storey, pitched roof range, the south elevation of which has been largely rebuilt. The rendered east gable has a broad chimney stack to the apex and is blind, save for a single inserted first floor window; a steep roof-line scar indicates the former presence of the now demolished east wing. The rear range has a single first-floor window. The left gable has a tall chimney stack, whose rubble stonework is integral to that of the gable. The two-storey rear range has a single window to both floors with stone sills and lintels. The rear elevation is an asymmetrical gable (chimney stack to the apex) that is pitched to the right and drops steeply to the left in the form of a cat-slide roof. It is mostly blind, with scattered fenestration to the left part.

INTERIOR: there are inserted partitions to both floors and ensuite bathrooms to the first-floor rooms, but the evolved plan of the building is legible. To the ground floor front range, the south-west room has a six-panel door, modified to fit by the addition of half panels, and two substantial ceiling beams, one boxed-in and the other with a moulded plaster coving to either side, which continues along the south wall. A cupboard to the left of the simple stone fireplace has double three-panel doors of C17 date. In the adjacent passage similar plaster coving continues along the south and east walls indicating that the south west room was originally larger and that the west wall of the passage is an insertion. The south-east room is entered through an opening in the thickness of the wall more than a metre deep fitted with a six-panel door of C17 form. This room has a central chimney breast with a deep cupboard within the thickness of the wall to its left. The room is panelled with four rows of small-panel panelling, thought to be C16 in date. In the north-west corner there is a cupboard within the wall thickness with a 10-panel timber door. Above the fireplace is a short timber beam, with chamfer stops to each end, supporting a first-floor fireplace.

To the ground floor rear range, the north-west room has a single ceiling beam and two plank doors. Its south wall (the original external wall of the front range) has a beam with a pair of corbels. The north-east room (a former dairy/buttery) is entered through a door of three wide planks; it has a pair of ceiling beams, and both windows have stone window cills. The enclosed timber dog-leg stair is situated to the rear of the passage; the under stairs has a stone-flagged floor and a re-used eight-panel door and associated panelling. The stair spandrel is similarly panelled, and some stick balusters remain as does a moulded handrail to the first straight flight; the remainder of the balustrade is a modern replacement. To the first-floor rear range, the waney timber structure of the cat-slide roof is exposed in the north-east room, and the north west room is entered through an C18 six-panel door. To the first-floor front range, the now sub-divided south-east room has a timber mullioned window and lintel (at present floor level) through the original rear wall, and a window opening through its east wall. To the right of the latter there is a substantial chimney breast, and immediately to the right a crude pointed-arched opening within the thickness of the wall. A cupboard within the thickness of the south wall is possibly associated with a possible garderobe in this location. The south-west room is now partitioned into two; its western part has a fireplace within the thickness of the east wall, a small room within the south wall, and a timber floor-boarded floor containing some early, wide boards.

SUBSIDIARY ITEMS: there are curving dry stone garden walls to the front of the house with a central opening, flanked by piers, and reached by stone steps.

History

Garnett House is recorded in historic documents from the early C16 through to the C20, and these records have been collated in a detailed report (Shiels and Hayhurst 2018). The first reference is the 1517 will of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal (1478-1517) courtier and father of Katherine Parr who became the sixth wife of King Henry VIII in 1543; in his will Thomas bequeaths 'Garnettes House’ to his cousin Richead Ducket for life. The Hearth Tax of 1669 records three hearths and in 1674 there are four hearths. The 1745 will of George Gibson provides information about the interior at this time, and mentions a parlour, new parlour, hall, buttery, dwelling house (main room) and the kitchen loft. The upper floor included a gallery loft, parlour loft, and hall loft, and outbuildings included a stable, lamp loft, cart house, cow house, barn and oxen house. In the 1777 window tax it is thought that the house has eight windows. A corn rent map of 1836 depicts a small courtyard-plan farmstead comprising Garnett House with an east wing, an outbuilding to the west, a bank barn and a byre. The first edition 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey (OS) map surveyed between 1858 and 1859 depicts the house with a similar footprint, and by the 1897 map revision, the east wing of the farmhouse has been removed. In the early C20 the tenant Joseph Sharp discovered within the house a leather drawstring purse containing 28 silver coins minted from the reigns of Henry VIII to William & Mary. In about 1920, the distinguished artist A H Hallam Murray (1854-1934), whose works were regularly exhibited in the Royal Academy, sketched the farmstead.

In 1934 The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) recorded Garnett House. It was considered that it comprised a front range of at least C16 date, and a rear range of C18 date, and it was noted that the front range incorporated a rectangular thick-walled (4 feet) building of earlier origins. A recent measured plan (January 2022) has confirmed the presence of a two-storey thick-walled rectangular building about 5.8m by 6.5m, incorporated into the south east corner of the house. It’s shape and character is consistent with that of a tower of medieval date. Between the C14 and the C16 towers were a relatively common feature of this part of Cumbria and were constructed in response to raids from across the Scottish border. It is unclear whether this example stood alone or formed part of a fortified or semi-fortified house with attached ranges, although the latter seems more likely. During the more settled conditions that prevailed after the Act of Union in 1707, such buildings often evolved into non-defensive buildings.

The house was slightly modified in the late C20, including the removal and stripping of the panelling to the ground floor tower room, and its reinstatement from five to four panels high; the horizontal frieze above was removed and probably cut and re-fitted, for example around the north-west cupboard. It is also reported that in removing the panels from the south-east corner, an opening was discovered thought to be the lower part of a garderobe. Additionally, a former stone stair to the north wall (possibly accessed via the present north-west cupboard opening) was removed. A staircase within the thickness of the original tower wall might be expected in this location, and in the corresponding place on the first floor there is an angled/bulging projection. Other C20 alterations included the removal of a first-floor panelled screen, and the insertion of a new window to the south elevation.

Reasons for Listing

This farmhouse of C18 date, incorporating a C16 front range including a medieval tower, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is a good example of an evolved vernacular dwelling, whose two main phases are preserved and highly legible;
* it has a largely intact C18 plan-form, which preserves, within its front range, an earlier two-unit plan-form including a two-story medieval tower;
* it is a good illustration of the regional tradition of early defensive dwellings, and their evolution to non-defensive buildings during the more settled conditions that prevailed after the Act of Union in 1707;
* the interior retains a range of internal fixtures and fittings from the C16 to the C19 including historic doors and cupboard doors, plaster cornicing, a dog-leg staircase and small-pane panelling.

Historic interest:

* in the early C16, the house was the property of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal, courtier and father of Katherine Parr who became the sixth wife of King Henry VIII.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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