Badash Farmhouse And Attached Garden Walls And Pump

Badash Farmhouse and Attached Garden Walls and Pump

Badash Farmhouse is an early 18th-century farmhouse incorporating masonry from an earlier, probable 17th-century house, located near Launceston. It was used as a meeting house for early Methodists and retains exceptional historical and architectural significance.

The building has rubble walls, much of which is slate hung including the front elevation. It features a steeply pitched U-plan hipped rag slate roof with gabled returns and an 18th-century coved eaves cornice, returned at the ends. Some 17th-century crested clay ridge tiles survive. The end stacks are slate hung, with an older rubble lateral stack towards the rear on the right. The plan is shallow and double-depth, with a rear wing on the right mostly rebuilt in the mid to late 19th century. The house stands two storeys tall with a symmetrical three-window front.

The front elevation displays original 12-pane hornless sashes with thick glazing bars to the first floor, set above early to mid-19th-century 12-pane hornless sashes and a central doorway. The doorway contains an 18th-century six-panel door with fielded panels within a mid-19th-century glazed box porch with end pilasters and moulded cornice, flanked by a pair of top-glazed doors with 6 panes per light. Many of the large hanging slates are inscribed, including one bearing "William Sargent, November 18th 1798" and a picture of a man resembling John Wesley on the left.

The rear elevation has an original central round-headed stair sash with fanlight head and thick glazing bars. To the slate-hung right-hand gable is a rare two-light mullioned window with original leaded glazing to one light and a mid-18th-century six-pane opening casement with thick glazing bars. A central two-light gable dormer is present with one light blocked. Other windows are mid-19th-century hornless sashes or late-19th-century horned sashes, all with glazing bars.

The interior retains an original dog-leg stair with closed string and turned balusters. Mid-19th-century doors and window shutters are present, along with mid-19th-century plaster ceiling cornices to the front rooms. The first floor and attic were not inspected but are likely to retain 18th-century roof structures.

Subsidiary items include attached rubble garden walls and a well-head with a granite trough and lead spout dated 1846. A lean-to outhouse runs parallel at the rear of the farmhouse.

Historical Context

William O'Bryan was born at Gunwen Farm, Lusulyan on 6th February 1778. Following his expulsion from the Wesleyan Conference, he became leader of a movement known as the Bryanites and founded The Bible Christian Society on 9th October 1815. On 11th February 1819, O'Bryan and his family moved to Badash from Kilkhampton. The first conference of the new body was held at Launceston on 17th August 1819, with the second held at Badash two years later. It is possible that Badash Farmhouse was already a regular Methodist meeting place before O'Bryan lived here, as suggested by the inscribed slate. Badash was spelled Bodashe in the 16th century.

Badash is an unusual 18th-century and earlier farmhouse with many rare features. It is grouped with an unusually complete and unaltered range of farm buildings including an 18th-century granary, set amidst open farmland. The house and its farm buildings are of particular importance for their architectural and historic interest.