Morval Farmhouse And Barn Adjoining To Rear

Morval Farmhouse and Barn

A farmhouse and adjoining barn forming part of the Morval Estate, probably of 17th-century origin but partly rebuilt in the mid-19th century. The buildings are constructed of rendered stone rubble with slate roofs featuring gable ends and sprocketed eaves.

The main farmhouse comprises a complex of interconnected ranges. The front elevation presents a regular 2-storey, 4-window façade with 19th-century casements. A 2-storey porch positioned left of centre contains a dressed stone 4-centred 19th-century arch with a heavy diagonally planked door. The ground floor windows flanking the porch include a 3-light casement to the left and a 4-light casement to the right serving the hall, with a 3-light casement to the inner room. All windows have segmental arched openings. The first floor has four 3-light casements positioned above the ground-floor openings. The porch features a second window with dressed stone surround and rusticated granite lintel, flanked by 2-light casements in the side walls.

The original structure probably followed a 3-room and through-passage plan, with the lower room and inner room heated by projecting gable-end stacks, and the hall heated by a rear lateral stack. Rendered stone rubble chimney stacks with moulded caps project from the gable ends, with a rear lateral stack serving the hall. Evidence of an earlier projection on the front to the right of the porch suggests a former front lateral chimney stack.

The building has been extended substantially over time. A further parallel range to the rear of the hall and through passage features a slate roof with gable ends. A projecting wing to the rear of the inner room is constructed of stone rubble and cob with a slate roof and gable end. A projecting wing at the rear of the lower end, with partly rendered stone rubble, has a corrugated asbestos roof with a hipped end on the right at the junction with the front range and a gable end on the left.

Further extensions were added circa the 18th century, including a 2-storey gabled wing to the rear of the inner room containing an apple store. A kitchen range was added to the rear of the hall and through passage in the early to mid-19th century, featuring a wide continuation of the through passage, slightly offset. A 1-room rear wing was added to the rear of the lower end circa the late 18th or early 19th century, then further extended in the mid-19th century to comprise a 3-room plan with a passage through to the inner courtyard.

The rear elevation of the remodelled 17th-century range displays 2 gabled dormers and a further gabled dormer above the stair, with casements in the rear elevation of the early to mid-19th-century range.

The rear wing to the rear of the lower end has an asymmetrical 2-window front. On the left side, a stone rubble ramp leads up to a plank door of the loft, with an open through passage to the left of centre leading to the courtyard. A 19th-century 1-light casement is positioned to the right. The first floor has a 19th-century 2-light casement with diagonal glazing bars above the passage and a 2-light casement to the right.

A stone rubble barn adjoining the rear wing stands at right angles, parallel to the main range, enclosing the fourth side of a cobbled courtyard. The barn was added circa the mid-19th century. It is a 2-storey structure with plank doors on the ground floor and 3 double louvered openings above.

The interior of the rebuilt 17th-century range retains a 19th-century stair in the wide passage, high plastered ceilings with 19th-century chimney pieces to the hall and lower end, and a 20th-century chimney piece to the inner room.

The roof structure includes a circa 19th-century roof to the main range (partly sealed with full access not possible), a pegged circa early to mid-19th-century king post truss roof to the kitchen range, and a steeply pitched roof above the apple chamber with the feet of the principals boxed in.

Morval Barton was the demesne farm of the manor, situated 170 metres to the north-west of Morval House. Farm accounts of the Barton survive from 1743–45 and 1752 to 1767 and are discussed by N.J.G. Pounds, who compares them with surviving accounts for Golden Barton in Probus Parish and Keveral Barton in St Martin Parish, also owned by the Buller family.