Rooks Nest Farm

Rooks Nest farm, Walkern

From ‘Parishes: Walkern’, A History of the County of Hertford: volume 3 (1912), pp. 151-158. British History Online

At the south end of the village are the mill on the River Beane and the early 17th-century farm-house called Rook’s Nest. It is chiefly built of the narrow 2-inch red bricks, and is of two stories and attics. It is L-shaped on plan, though a long brew-house projects northward from the kitchen wing. The main building faces east, and has the usual two-storied gabled porch nearly in the centre of the front. At the back is a boldly projecting staircase carried well above the eaves of the main building and finished with a gable. A long kitchen wing facing the south projects from the main building. The main building is divided internally into two nearly equal parts by the massive substructure of the central chimney, the drawing-room or old parlour being on the right of the entrance, and the hall, now the dining room, on the left. In both these rooms the old fireplaces have been built up and modern grates substituted. A south entrance door formerly existed from the dining room. The staircase opens directly into the dining room, and the arrangement of the stair is very similar to that at Queen Hoo Hall, Tewin, and is an intermediate stage between the newel and the open stair; but in this instance the stair winds round three sides only of the timber-framed newel, which is 2 ft. 3 in. wide, and is lined up to the first floor level with old oak panelling. The panels are moulded, and inside each is a lozenge-shaped inner panel. This is the only old panelling left in the house. At the landing above are some flat-moulded balusters, cut out of 3 in. by 1¼ in. oak. The kitchen has an old fireplace 9 ft. 6 in. wide, with a plain lintel, which is partly occupied by a modern range. There is a small parlour between the kitchen entrance and the dining room. The whole of the kitchen wing is formed of timber framing, the timbers being placed close together and filled in between with thin bricks. The chimney over the main building has a group of four square shafts set diagonally on a massive square base; the chimney over the kitchen wing is of wide brickwork, with a plain sunk panel in its width. The roofs are tiled. All the windows on the east front have moulded mullions and transoms formed in cement, and over each is a brick dripstone with returned ends. All the windows on the south front have been modernized. They formerly had oak mullions and diamond-shaped lead lights.