Forsbrook Hall Farmhouse

Finding the farmhouse in the record

Search the National Heritage List for 1253689. The entry is headed Forsbrook Hall Farmhouse, gives Draycott Road as its statutory address and identifies the site at National Grid reference SJ 96628 41427. The district’s heritage assessment uses the street name Draycott Old Road. The grid reference helps to match the two records.

The farmhouse was listed at Grade II on 3 January 1967. The list entry contains a location map and a photograph. These are good ways to study the house without entering the property.

What the stonework tells us

The main front has two storeys and four windows across. A tall gabled porch stands just off centre. The nineteenth-century opening windows fit within much older stone surrounds. At the attic window in the right-hand gable, vertical stone divisions called mullions survive. These details tell separate stories about building and alteration even on a single elevation.

There is a small puzzle in the published description. Its opening gives the date 1672, while the inscription it transcribes at the entrance reads IB 1612. Both are in the national record. Seventeenth century is the safest description of the building here. A closer date needs separate documentary or physical evidence.

A farm in the village

The district assessment places the house in a group of farm buildings arranged around a yard. That plan ties the building to the agricultural history of Forsbrook. It also explains why an old map showing the outbuildings can be as revealing as a photograph of the front door. The assessment raises the possibility of an earlier manor site, while acknowledging the absence of a firm identification.