Knowles M.S. 1817'. It is a small, deliberate act of permanence, the kind a person makes when they want a building to carry their name into the future. The initials and date are still there, outlasting whatever else M. Knowles may have been known for.

The house itself dates to the early nineteenth century and follows a restrained, practical layout. The southern entrance front presents two bays across two storeys, with a round-headed doorway, a feature common to the late Georgian period that gives even functional rural buildings a note of quiet formality. The east and west elevations are broader, running to three bays and dropping to include a basement storey, which would have served the working needs of the household. The roof is hipped with a central valley, a configuration that manages rainwater across a wider footprint and was typical of substantial farmhouse and minor country-house construction of the period. To the east, farm buildings enclose a courtyard, suggesting that whoever built this place was as concerned with agricultural efficiency as with domestic presentation. The whole arrangement points to a family of middling prosperity, somewhere between the grand estate and the working farm.