East Farm (1 to 4 Barns Close), Monkton Lane

The farm sits behind a prominent stone boundary wall and a large, green garden. This large sandstone farmhouse has a robust character with sash windows (with exposed weight boxes), a slate roof and stone water tabling. It has two well-mannered extensions - a small garage to the west in rubble stone and handmade brick, and a large single-storey one to the east in stone with a hipped pitched slate roof. The pitched roof rear offshoot has a stone ground floor and a later handmade brick upper storey (in English garden wall bond), which includes a first floor stone window lintel dated 1865.
Good conservation-style rooflights are used on the rear roof slope but some rear replacement windows are 'fake sash' top-hung casements that visually jar against the finer original ones. East Farm's neighbouring U-plan stone barns (1-4 Barns Close) have been sensitively rebuilt for residential use, using brick timber detailing, conservation-style rooflights, new traditionally designed sliding sash windows, a few new window openings, black metal rainwater goods, and a mix of Welsh slate and pantile roofs with discrete ridge vents. There is a block paviour courtyard and boundary walls topped with characteristic triangular copes. A bumper stone survives on one corner of the barn. LOCAL LIST