Roskruge Barton Farmhouse And Rear Garden Walls

Roskruge Barton Farmhouse and Rear Garden Walls

A farmhouse with rear garden walls, dating from the late medieval period and remodelled in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with slight enlargement in the 18th century. The building is of considerable architectural and historical interest, retaining much of its original character and structure.

The walls are of painted rubble with cob, and many dressed granite outer frames surround the mullioned windows. Wooden lintels are present in several locations. The roof is covered in scantle slate with some hand-made crested clay ridge tiles. Brick chimneys rise over two gable ends and two lateral chimneys are positioned elsewhere. The left-hand gable end features a large external breast, and the rear wall has a large lateral breast.

The plan is T-shaped in its 17th-century form, with the principal axis running east-west. The head of the T comprises a cross wing retained from a truncated medieval house, which extends as a parlour wing over a cellar at the rear. The principal chamber above has a plaster barrel ceiling and was remodelled in the late 17th century. The front now contains a stair hall with a pantry or buttery between. What may have been a service wing of the medieval house on the left was remodelled in the 17th century to become a kitchen (far left) with an enormous gable hearth, and a hall on the right with a lateral rear fireplace. A former through passage between these spaces is entered from a late 17th-century two-storey porch at the front (north). In the 18th century, a hip-ended outbuilding was added behind the parlour, or possibly the lower end of the medieval house was rebuilt as an outbuilding, probably a cider loft, incorporating some older roof timbers. Probably also in the 18th century, a service wing was added at right angles in front of the kitchen, and a wide window was cut on the south side of the kitchen to replace a two-light former mullioned window, which was altered to become a doorway into the service wing.

The building is two storeys overall, but the cross wing on the right rises to two storeys over the cellar plus an attic storey. The north front is irregular and roughly built, with a projecting gable end of the wing in front left, a gable and cross wing with lesser projection on the right, a porch with an oriel bay window over in the left-hand angle, and otherwise irregularly disposed window openings.

A circa early 17th-century four-centred arched doorway with straight chamfers and stops is present, with an old ledged door. The circa late 17th-century porch is formed by a slate-hung gabled first-floor window projection carried on two Tuscan granite columns, with ogee-moulded plates forming a cornice beneath. The four-light wooden mullioned window with side lights is probably original and has circa late 18th-century casements with horizontal glazing bars. The right-hand sidelight retains leaded panes. The two ground-floor windows on the right originally had three lights but the mullions are missing. The three first-floor openings have rubble jambs and are probably contemporary with the porch or inserted when the eaves were heightened. The square middle window has, like the ground-floor openings, a circa late 19th-century six-pane horned sash. The gable end of the cross wing on the right has two mullioned windows, formerly with two lights but with centre mullions removed; one lights the basement (now blocked just above ground level) and one at mid-floor level lights the stair, now with a 19th-century six-pane horned sash. The two-light casement above and the circa early 19th-century twelve-pane horizontal sliding sash to the gable are in openings probably cut when the present late 17th-century stair was inserted.

The west front is irregular with three windows plus a single-storey two-window service lean-to on the right. A circa late medieval ogee-headed single-light slit window occupies the ground floor on the left; a 17th-century two-light mullioned window with mullion removed stands left of centre, and a tall 20th-century three-light mullioned window is positioned on the right. A tall fixed-light stair window above an ogee-headed light, a square window opening towards the middle, and a large square opening to the former principal chamber on the right all have horned sashes. The lean-to windows are circa early 19th-century twelve-pane horizontal sliding sashes.

The rear has three first-floor windows, one left of the lateral hall stack and two on the right, all circa late 18th-century horizontal sliding sashes with crown glass: three-light left and middle, and two-light right. The former through-passage doorway, under the middle window, has a chamfered lintel but rubble jambs. A shallow arched wooden frame within is probably contemporary with the porch; an old ledged door remains; a semi-circular step in front of the doorway may be a former door arch. A sixteen-pane hornless sash stands left of the chimney breast; a 18th-century thirty-two-pane hornless sash occupies a very wide opening at the far right; and a small window opening, possibly cut in the 20th century, is left of the doorway.

The parlour wing and cider house project from the left-hand side. A wide rubble-jambed doorway with internal splay leads into the cellar below the parlour. Above this doorway, now overgrown with ivy, is a blocked four-light mullioned window. The cider house, adjoining the cellar and parlour but with much lower eaves, has a central ground-floor doorway and a doorway at first-floor level on the left, approached by a straight flight of granite steps at right angles. Under the steps are two square niches, possibly for geese.

The interior has been inspected to ground-floor and cellar level only. Two circa early 18th-century three-panel doors survive in the kitchen. A shell-headed niche stands beside the parlour hearth. A closed-well circa late 17th-century stair has square newel posts, large turned ball finials, and a plain panelled dado. Earlier features may be hidden elsewhere.

The cellar has a cobbled floor with a drain and two stone monoliths set in the ground in the west wall, presumably allowing the higher end of the cellar (north) to be used for animal standings, possibly stabling, or as a shippon. A domed granite base supports one of the vertical wooden floor supports.

Historical documentation records a Richard Roscruc of Roscruc in 1284 and Anthony Roscruge in 1684 (information from occupiers). An inventory of 1605 mentions a parlour at Roskruge (Chesher), suggesting that if the remodelling took place some years before this date, the doorway within the porch, the mullioned windows, and much of the structure may date to the 16th century.

This is a house of considerable interest with an unusual and complicated plan development, which would benefit from a careful survey to produce measured plans and elevations. Roskruge survives little altered since the 19th century and is a rare early house in this part of Cornwall.