Listed Building record MDR13056 - Troway Hall Farmhouse, Troway, Eckington

Troway Hall Farm was probably built by a member of the family occupying the adjacent Troway Hall. It may have been occasioned by a marriage but was clearly initiated by someone familiar with what was then modish. Its proximity to Troway Hall might imply a shared inheritance, hence two farmhouses in the same yard. Troway Hall farmhouse is a stone-built two-storied house, square in plan of 'double-pile' arrangement with twin pitched roofs ridged in parallel. The house, on stylistic grounds, may be ascribed to the last quarter of the 17th century. The compact plan comprises four rooms to each floor with a cellar at the north-west angle; there were formerly usable garrets in the roof space. There is a uniform window style of square-headed lights and plain chamfered mullions; no original glazing survives. Internally all rooms have, or had, exposed ceiling joists with chamfer-stopped main beams. On the ground floor the hall, parlour and former kitchen retain their original corbelled fireplaces; the present kitchen was originally unheated. At first-floor level the room above the hall was heated. Alterations in the room over the parlour make it uncertain whether there it had a hearth. Both roof structures are spanned by king-post trusses of modern origin. Some coping stones, a moulded kneeler and window fragments are incorporated into garden walls near to the house and represent remnants from alterations to the fabric. (1) The depiction of Troway Hall farmhouse on William Fairbank's map of the 'old enclosures' and the draft Parliamentary Enclosure Award Map, both dated 1796, suggests that the building at that time did not have its current square plan. (2, 3)