Whitton Farmhouse

Description

Whitton Farmhouse, grade II listed building. Mid 18th century with older core. Old masonry to rear in lower courses. Internally, a very large fireplace with Tudor-arched lintel. Now part of a hotel (Listed Building Report).
Whitton Farmhouse lies east of North Cottage (NU 00 SE 81) and consists of an L-plan building, its front block 8.75m by 5.75m, with a rear range extending northwards from the west end. The building is largely of 18th century date, with walls c.0.75m thick, but seems to incorporate earlier remains, seen in the large roughly squared masonry and possibly the blocked central doorway in the east end (although the dressings of the doorway are not especially massive) the boulder plinth at the foot of the north wall and the rough plinth on the south wall. Three of the windows in the south wall reuse the sills of earlier two-light mullioned windows and a similar sill remains in situ beneath the eastern first floor one; the window below this is a 20th century insertion replacing an older doorway. In addition, the east gable end shows two successive earlier roof lines. The rear wing is of small rubble, heightened in the 19th century; its walls are not especially thick, but at the north end of the east wall is a doorway, now converted into a window, with a flattened head and massive roughly shaped dressings. It seems most likely that the front block is a remodelled bastle (with what remains of the original walls thinned back internally) whilst the doorway in the rear range may be a reset feature from the bastle (Ryder 1994-5). (Northumberland HER)

Comments

The listed building report in the Northumberland HER (as of Feb 2014) applies to The Pines a different building from that described and carefully located by Ryder.
This building and Whitton Farm North Cottage are set at right angles to each other but there doesn't seem to be any suggestion that they formed two sides of an enclosure.