Somerdon House Farmhouse And Adjoning Outhouse And Screen Wall To Left

Somerdon House Farmhouse is a property dating back to approximately 1825, although it has earlier origins and a later 19th-century addition to the rear. The farmhouse is constructed of yellow brick in a Flemish bond pattern, with red brick to the right return and rear addition. It has a Welsh slate roof. It is arranged in a T-shaped plan, consisting of a two-room, central entrance-hall fronting west, with a double-depth wing to the rear. A short screen wall adjoins outhouses to the left.

The farmhouse is two storeys high with three bays and a symmetrical facade. It features a painted ashlar plinth. The entrance has three stone steps leading to a wooden doorcase with ribbed pilasters supporting an entablature with a plain frieze, moulded cornice, and a hood. The door is a four-panel design, under a moulded cornice, and is set within a round-headed fielded-panelled reveal that also contains a radial fanlight. Full-height flat-fronted bows flank the entrance and contain tripartite sash windows in splayed reveals with painted ashlar lintels. The structure has ground- and first-floor sill bands. A central first-floor sash window is similarly lintelled. All windows have later 19th-century plate-glass sashes. An ovolo-moulded corniced wooden gutter runs along the roofline, and the bays have coped parapets. The roof is hipped, with stone-coped end stacks topped with tapered square pots.

A screen wall to the left, of single-storey height, incorporates a plinth (stuccoed to the right), a two-course brick band, a round-headed entrance flanked by a pair of small two-pane sliding sashes, and brick coping that ramps up to the house on the right. The rear wing has four-pane sashes and board doors with plain overlights set beneath rubbed-brick cambered arches.

The interior of the farmhouse includes an entrance hall with a ribbed and coved cornice, a plasterwork acanthus ceiling rose, and an open well staircase with a wreathed corniced handrail, column balusters, and profiled cheek pieces. Throughout the house there is moulded skirting and six-fielded-panel doors. The stair window and all doors are framed by ribbed, panelled architraves with carved ram's heads at the angles, moulded cornices, and hoods. The ground-floor room doors also have plain friezes. First-floor front rooms are distinguished by similar ram’s head fire surrounds with moulded cornices and mantelshelves, flanked by a pair of six-fielded-panel cupboard doors in similar architraves. A first-floor room at the rear right has a carved stone pilastered chimney-piece with foliate capitals.

The farm was known as Cold Harbour on an 1824 Ordnance Survey map and was also called West End Cottage in the early 19th century. The farmhouse is a stylish example with well-preserved original interior details.