Pengelly Barton Farmhouse, Front Garden Walls And Gate Piers

Pengelly Barton Farmhouse, front garden walls and gate piers

Farmhouse with front garden walls and gate piers. The building dates from the 17th century or earlier, with substantial remodelling and partial rebuilding in the 18th century and slight remodelling around the late 19th century. The front is constructed of granite and elvan ashlar in diminishing courses with dressed granite sills and lintels. The remainder uses granite and elvan rubble with dressed granite quoins, jambstones and lintels. Some 17th-century dressed granite features remain in situ, and some 17th-century dressed granite has been reused. The main roof is covered in slurried scantle slate with tall brick chimneys positioned over the gable ends; the chimney on the right hand gable end projects outward. The rear section has a gable-ended asbestos slate roof sweeping lower to the right (south), with a brick chimney over the gable end and a reused 17th-century hand-made clay ridge tile featuring a ball finial.

The overall plan is L-shaped. The building probably originally consisted of a 3-room through-passage plan with the lower end to the right, with the original rear doorway now blocked. A wing containing the stairwell and parlour, set at right angles to the rear left, was probably built in the first half of the 17th century. During the 18th century, the front wall, gable ends and part of the back wall were rebuilt, the floors and roof replaced, and the parlour wing extended by widening to the right (south). Some, possibly all, of the principal rooms were panelled. The front main range was remodelled internally to create two nearly equal reception rooms flanking a central cross passage. At the right hand gable end is a lean-to, probably a wash house, accessed from the house via a doorway from the right hand room. In the 19th century, the rear wing roof was probably remodelled, floors in the right hand section were replaced and the stairs were renewed.

The building is two storeys high. The symmetrical west-facing front features five windows with a central doorway. The door is a 19th-century 4-panel type with the top panels later glazed, with a plain overlight. The window above the doorway is blocked; the other windows are circa late 19th-century 4-pane horned sashes fitted in unaltered 18th-century openings.

The rear elevation retains some original 17th-century walling with a straight chamfered lintel over the blocked doorway. The left hand (north) wall of the wing has the original slightly hollow chamfered parlour window, rebated for external shutters, with one mullion surviving. At the far right, below a tall stair window, is a similar 17th-century 2-light mullioned window with the mullion removed. The stair window is circa late 19th or early 20th-century sash with coloured glass in the marginal panes. The 17th-century walling continues to the left of the parlour wing until meeting a 19th-century outbuilding with a ragged joint, suggesting it originally extended further.

The interior retains 18th-century features including some full-height fielded panelling and moulded ceiling cornices on either side of the cross passage and on two walls of the left hand room. Some 18th-century doors survive, as does 18th-century fielded panelling surmounted by a dentilled cornice on the partition wall of the right hand room under the outshut of the wing. The circa late 19th-century dog-leg stair features turned balusters and turned finials over the newel posts, possibly inspired by the 17th-century stair that was removed. The roof structures were not inspected but are probably 18th-century over the front range.

The 17th-century garden walls adjoin either side of the front and return to enclose a rectangular garden with a carriage-width gateway aligned with the front door. The rubble walls are topped with dressed granite copings featuring roll-moulded ridged tops. The probably 17th-century, very debased Doric gate piers are surmounted by steep pyramidal finials. The gate piers stand on tapered bases and have echinus-moulded caps, and may originally have been part of a gatehouse, porch or even a colonnade, as at Godolphin. Standing near the front wall is a granite cider apple crusher complete with semi-spherical crushing wheel.

This farmhouse was clearly an important house in both the 17th and 18th centuries and has been little altered since the 18th century. The surviving 17th-century features—the mullioned windows, garden walls and gate piers—are particularly notable. The symmetrical 18th-century ashlar front and other 18th-century features are of very good quality.