Lower house farm (or Lower Farm), Rhoose is a substantial farmstead situated near the centre of Rhoose village.

It was obviously a prosperous agricultural holding as evidenced by the range of well-built farm building sited behind the farmhouse which included a barn with large opposing doorways, stables, and cowsheds. The farmhouse similarly reflects this prosperity and is imposing in appearance and pleasing in design. Next to the farmhouse (and abutting it) is a smaller, thatched cottage, having a separate main entrance doorway, though there is also an inter-connecting doorway which leads from the living room of the cottage into the back kitchen of the house. This latter feature is not thought to be original. The farm has by now been divided up and no longer functions as an agricultural unit. The outbuildings have been (or are in the process of being) converted into residential dwellings and are under separate ownership; the farmhouse and cottage have recently been acquired by the present owners who intend reinstating it to some of its former, if not original, appearance.

The Farmhouse

The main house is a fine 2-storeyed Georgian building built of limestone rubble with a slate roof. It is believed to have been built in the year 1788, possibly replacing an earlier farmhouse. At a later date (mid 19th century?) dormer windows were inserted in the roof space to make the attic habitable. The exposed west gable has been slate hung to protect it from the prevailing wind and rain. In plan the house is of symmetrical design with the central entrance door leading onto a passage/hallway off which access could be gained to a parlour on one side and the main living room on the other. These 2 rooms are roughly square in plan and are lit by fine, tall 12-light casement windows. The parlour has a central fireplace with recesses on either side which would probably have contained fitted cupboards. The present fireplace is not original and this would probably have had a fine carved surround, possibly of classical design with slight ornamentation in the form of relief carving or moulding.

The present living room would originally have served as the kitchen with much of the household's cooking being done over the open hearth. It is quite possible that an iron bracket crane would have been used to support cauldrons, kettles, etc. that would have been suspended over the fire. However, it is also probable that cooking would have been moved to another part of the house during the 19th century as fashion dictated the segregation of kitchen activities from those of the parlour and it is possible that this room was refurnished as a dining room.

Behind the living room is a smaller room now used as a kitchen, and behind the parlour the corresponding space has been divided into 2 rooms, 1 containing 2 slate/stone slabs and 2 ceiling hooks, the other having a circle of 8 ceiling hooks around a central hook with a further 2 hooks to one side (making a total of 11 hooks). These rooms would have served as larders. The present kitchen may have originally been a dairy.

The hallway leads to a dog-legged staircase which forms an out shoot on the back (north side) of the house. A window on the half landing has been reduced in height (19th century) in order to enable the insertion of another, smaller window above to light the attic steps. An iron handrail to one side of the stair well is probably original.

On the first floor are 5 rooms, probably all bedrooms originally. The 2 end rooms on the south (front) side of the house have fireplaces, the bedroom located above the parlour having a nice cast-iron hob grate which could be original, but is more probably a mid 19th century version of an earlier design (west side). The back bedroom (above the larder) also has a small cast-iron grate, probably early Victorian. The bedroom above the present kitchen and that above the entrance passageway do not have fireplaces.

The staircase from the first floor continues up wards to the attic floor, the outshoot housing the stairs having been raised in height to accommodate the extra headroom required and a small window inserted to the half- landing. The attic rooms are lit by dormer windows and the room on the eastern side of the loft also has a tiny gable light which probably predates the dormers. The roof trusses are simple 'A' frames, the collars (now missing) being virtually surface-mounted and pegged onto the face of the principals; shallow dovetailed notches and peg-holes indicate the former position of the collar. A purling is threaded through each principal approximately mid-way between the collar and the wall, and there is probably a second between the collar and the ridge (now hidden by a ceiling)

The Cottage

Attached to the eastern side (gable) of the farmhouse is a thatched cottage which can be entered from the farmhouse kitchen. The awkward arrangement of this doorway in relation to the kitchen suggests that it is not original and was probably cut through after the farmhouse was built. The cottage is almost certainly older than the house, the crudely moulded ceiling joists in the living room with their run-out chamfers and occasional vestigial stop indicating a date sometime between the late 17th century and the first half of the 18th century. The cottage today contains three rooms in the ground floor, but the original dwelling may have had just a single room, the others being added possibly during the 19th century. Dominating the centre of the west wall of the kitchen is a fine Victorian cast-iron range which has been built into the old ingle nook. To the left of this fireplace is a cupboard which might be the site of the original access to the loft (by ladder or wooden stair). Immediately to the right of the fireplace is a settle above which is an old salt cupboard or storage box. The settle screens the fire from draughts from the door which is next to it.

Set against the wall opposite the fire is a wooden bench, 2.5m in length, which meets the southern wall of the room by a window and continues around it to form a window seat. To the left of this window is a cupboard, the H-L hinges (18th century?) surviving intact. The entrance door to this room (and the original doorway to the cottage) is the one, noted above, located next to the hearth. In other words, it would have been located in the gable, a feature that typified many of the cottages and houses of Glamorgan during the post-medieval period. A second window in the wall opposite the first site rather uncomfortably next to the farmhouse wall and this may be a later insertion or be an enlargement of an earlier opening.

Backing onto this room is another which appears to have served as a kitchen. It contains 2 water boilers which are built against the back of the chimney to the first room, and a brick-lined bread oven which has been cut into the original cottage wall next to the chimney. All 3 features are probably of 19th century date. A doorway enters this room from the south, this now serving as the main entrance door to the cottage, and a window located to the west of this door is probably contemporary with the structure. On the opposite (north) wall is another doorway which leads onto the farmyard, this may be a later insertion.

Leading off this room, to the west, is another, smaller room, having a stone-flagged floor, shelves along the 2 'long' walls, 2 ceiling hooks and a small north facing window, suggesting a former use as a larder or pantry.

The cottage is lofted, but only the portion above the original dwelling (western-most room) appears to have been inhabited, and a wooden ladder located next to the hearth wall leads to this bedroom. The simple A-framed roof truss is lightly moulded on the underside having run-out chamfers as found on the ground floor joists. This room was lit by 2 dormer windows (1 now blocked) and there appears to have been a doorway from this room into another room or loft in an adjoining building, now replaced by the farmhouse. The cottage is thatched, the covering appearing to be in good condition.

Summary

The oldest part of the combined property would appear to be the westernmost room of the thatched cottage. This may have been originally a single-roomed cottage or there may have been a second room in the position now occupied by the farmhouse living room. Alternatively, there could have been a farm building (cow house or stable perhaps) attached to the cottage having an interconnecting loft, as evidenced by the doorway in the cottage bedroom.

By the late 18th century, the farm was obviously prospering and a new and substantial farmhouse was built next to the cottage, the latter possibly being downgraded to serve as accommodation for farm servants or a coachman. At about this same time, or shortly afterwards, it appears that a decision was taken to concentrate most if not all of the cooking and laundering activities in the cottage, and the latter was extended by the addition of 2 rooms beyond the eastern gable wall, entry to the cottage now being affected through the central room. Two water boilers were built in this room against the back of the original cottage wall (which incorporated the chimney) and a bread-oven was built alongside, the bricks used for lining the interior together with the cast-iron door indicating a 19th century date. The third room served as a pantry.

At some stage the farmhouse was modified so that the 2 front downstairs rooms became 'polite', i.e. they were probably used as parlour and dining room respectively, whilst the back rooms served as larders and possibly a dairy room. Extra accommodation (for live-in servants?) was provided in the attic which was made more habitable by the insertion of dormer windows in the roof; to this end also the staircase was improved and headroom increased above the flight to the attic floor. A doorway was cut through the eastern gable wall of the house to link the back ground floor room (ex dairy?) with the cottage; and in the cottage itself a fine cast-iron range was built into the inglenook, this room now probably serving as the main cooking area for the house.

It should be possible to pinpoint the date of building the farmhouse by means of Land Tax Assessments (LTAs). These documents are stored at the Glamorgan Record Office and pre-date the Tithe Apportionment Schedules (c.1840) or the first census (1841). The LTAs should also give the names of the occupants (and owners) of the farm before the farmhouse was built; they generally date back to about the 1760s.

Gerallt D Nash August 1988