The DBRG report, 1978
By kind invitation of Mrs.Buer
The garden front shows the development of the house. This facade is in Bargate stone. The old house was of two storeys, with an end chimney. The entrance is central with one window on each side. The outshot at the back is original. Date of this house ~probably about seventeen hundred. A stone addition on the south west end witb higher ceilings necessitated the raising of the old wall about half a metre. The new window reaches to the eaves. The old windows remain at the lower height. The interior wall of the old house is timber—framed. There is a sunken dairy which was extended -with the Georgian addition.
Norney Farm was built to the south of Shackleford by Shackleford Road. It is set sideways to the road and backs the farm road and faces south-east and the meadows. The first view of the house is the north-east end with the large chimney stack and timber framing up to the eaves. A close inspection shows that this framing is partly replaced. The wallplate end is a metre lower than the rest of the framing. The old bread oven projects outside the hearth. The back of the house has a lean-to which rests below the present eaves, but it butts up to the original wallplate, and was left behind when the roof was raised. That row of short studs holds up the new wallplate. Inside, at the top of the stair the old wall-plate remains, with the old ties in position, crossing the walls, but the ceilings have been raised in the old house.
It was built as a small house, with a hearth room and an unheated room beyond. The stair rose within this back room, from the front room. It may have been turned when the new rooms were added. The inglenook hearth, or down hearth as it is called, has bench seats and brick jambs. There is a good ventilated cupboard beside, made of three planks with rounded slits, and a thumb catch. Upstairs are two iron grates with hobs beside.
The outshot, now a lean to, has the way through to the farmyard. The well is on the south east corner, and not here. The north corner of this outshot was the scullery with copper and bread oven. The tiny window was opened to let the copper steam out.
The dairy was sunken, a little. But when the new building was added it gave opportunity for extending and deepening the sunken dairy into a half cellar, and of adding a half-height room over. The way to this room is over the first dairy which now has shelves under the stair. The dairy has brick floors, stone walls – and many keeping places. The window has diamond mullions.
The front of the house has brick quoins. The front door has old narrow bricks on one side, and a rebuild in newer bricks on the other. A cattle byre is built up against the farm on the south west side.
The hearth room has a good timber ceiling with seven plain joists. The floor is brick. Now both the old rooms have been opened out into one.
This is an unusual house, full of interest.
norneyfarm sketch 2
norneyfarm plan and photos
norneyfarm sketch northwest original house
norneyfarm fireplace and sunken dairy
norneyfarm interior details
norneyfarm interior photos 1978 1
norneyfarm interior photos 1978 2
norneyfarm interior photos 1978 3
Recorded by the Frensham Group with Joan Harding November 1978
Report by Joan Harding December 1978
Photography by Cecilia Green
DBRG 2111
Grid ref SU 942 446
Copyright DBRG 1978