Townfoot Farm, East Woodburn

Description

House, farmbuildings and cottages. Early C19 with older core. House dressed stone with graduated Lakeland slate roof, Other buildings random rubble with Welsh slate roofs. House on right with farmbuildings round yard to left. House 2 storeys, 3 bays. Plank door and 2 flanking but irregularly-spaced late C19 sashes on ground floor. 3 similar sashes above. Gabled roof with flat coping and 2 stone end and one ridge stacks.
Attached to left 2 single-storey stores. The first has plank door, C20 window and cart doors with wood lintel; the 2nd has segmental arch and -slatted window. The wall between them is 4 ft 6 ins thick and has a door with drawbar holes and one jamb which is a Roman altar with inscription and hunting scene, the former bastle-house door. Left of these, forming head of yard is 2-storey byre with granary over. Central door on each floor and flanking -slatted windows. Outside stone stair to rear. Gabled roof with flat coping. Left side of yard is 2 cottages of lobby-entry plan with blank wall towards yard. Rear of each cottage has central door and flanking sash windows. Gabled roof with small stone gable stacks. Centre of farmyard has old rubble midden with raised walkway around. (Listed Building Report)

Townfoot Farm stands c.300m east of East Woodburn. The buildings are grouped around a small yard, opening to the east. The farmhouse itself looks of early 19th century date, but at its west end is a lower building incorporating the lower part of the west end of a bastle, 6.5m wide and 0.8m thick. The walling is of rubble with large irregular quoins. The central doorway is square headed, the north jamb is chamfered, and the upper part of the south, but the lower section of the south jamb is formed by a quite spectacular Roman altar; a slot in the wall on the south side of the altar seems to be a relatively recent modification, to allow a closer examination of it. Internally the altar projects rather awkwardly from the jamb. The lintel of the doorway is left unchamfered; internally it has a cut rebate for the door, and a harr socket against the south jamb. A pair of sockets above and to either side of the internal face of the doorway may relate either to ceiling timbers, or perhaps to former corbels for a hearth. The remainder of the bastle appears to have been completely rebuilt, although a large projecting block at the foot of the south east corner hints that the present building may be on old footings.
On the opposite (south) side of the yard is a single storey range of buildings; one of the blocks of the north east quoin has a circular socket and is perhaps reused from another harr hung doorway.
The remains of the Townfoot bastle are fragmentary, but the Roman altar is of considerable importance (Ryder 1994-5). (Northumberland HER)