Leigh Barton

Leigh Barton is a farmhouse dating back to the early 16th century, with alterations from the 17th century and later. A 20th-century restoration and addition are also present. The house is timber-framed, with painted brick infilling to the ground floor and part of the first floor, and rendered infilling elsewhere. It has a plain tile roof. It originally comprised four timber-framed bays; a two-bay open hall and two storeyed end bays. The building is approximately one-and-a-half storeys high, set on a rendered flint and brick plinth. The left end bay is jettied on solid-spandrel brackets, with the jetty returning along the left gable end on a moulded dragon post. The facade of the rest of the house is flush with the first floor of the left end bay. The timber framing has broadly-spaced studs, with virtually straight arch braces to the ground floor of the left end bay, and tension braces to the first floor. The roof is hipped. A multiflue brick stack is situated to the left end of the right hall bay. Three three-light eaves dormers, each with a hipped plain tile roof, are positioned two to the left and one to the right of the stack. There are three leaded ground-floor casement windows. A ribbed door is located within a painted brick porch with applied framing and a gabled plain tile roof, situated under the stack. A later, probably 20th-century, two-storey parallel rear range extends from the hall and right end bay, and a similar single-storey addition is linked to the right of it. Internally, exposed timber framing is visible. The left end bay has axial joists, morticed for a central partition, and a stair trimmer along the rear wall. A moulded and brattished beam is present at the left end of the hall, featuring almost complete spear detailing towards the rear and a stump towards the front. The soffit contains mortices for a post-and-stave partition with doorways at each end. A chamfered hall window-cill extends along the front wall of the left hall bay, and another is located on the rear wall. The right end room has a restored ceiling, showing slight evidence for a right gable-end jetty. Other features include gunstock-jowled posts, a cambered central-truss tie-beam, a 20th-century roof, a chamfered axial beam and joists to an inserted hall floor, brick fireplaces with wooden bressumers, and stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops.