Bosinver Farmhouse

Bosinver Farmhouse is a farmhouse, now a private house, located in St Mewan. The building probably dates to the late 16th or early 17th century, with significant alterations and additions made around the mid-17th century when a stair tower was added to the rear and a two-storey bay was added to the front of the hall. Further additions followed: probably in the late 18th century a single-room addition was made to the rear left, and probably around the same time or in the early 19th century a cross wing was added at the right end. Later alterations and additions continued through the 19th and 20th centuries.

The building is constructed of stone rubble and cob, rendered, with a thatched half-hipped roof; the outshut has a slate roof. Two rear lateral stacks with rubble shafts sit to the left.

The original plan is unclear, though the house may originally have been of three-room plan. The current layout comprises a right room (possibly originally heated from a gable end stack), a central hall heated from a rear lateral stack, and an upper end room to the left also heated from a rear lateral stack. The mid-17th-century stair tower at the rear of the hall provided access, and possibly at the same time a two-storey bay was added to the front, now used as a porch. The two rooms to the rear right are now unified as one room. An 18th-century single-room addition to the rear left is entered from the stair tower. A one-room cross wing added slightly later at the right end is heated from a gable end stack to the rear and contains an oven; this may have replaced the original lower end room as a kitchen. The hall itself was also used for cooking, with an oven inserted into the rear of the fireplace.

Externally, the house is asymmetrical with two storeys and a three-window front. A shallow bay projects from the main front, with a 20th-century door and plastic window at first floor; a small glazed corner window sits by the doorway. The ground floor to the right has an early 20th-century paired four-pane sash, and the first floor has a 20th-century two-light six-pane casement. To the left, the ground floor has a 19th-century twelve-pane sash and the first floor a similar two-light six-pane casement. The left end has a 20th-century glazed door and plastic window at first floor. Attached to the left is the 18th-century outshut addition, a single storey with loft featuring a 20th-century window with keystone at ground floor and a four-pane window at first floor. The right end cross-wing is two storeys tall with a 20th-century plank door and window at ground floor to the right, two 20th-century windows to the left, and a hipped thatched porch. The front end of the cross-wing has a single-storey 20th-century addition. At the rear, a single-storey 20th-century addition sits behind the 18th-century outshut to the right. The stair tower has a gable end with a 19th-century sixteen-pane sash; to its left is the rear lateral stack to the hall, which has a curved oven at the base and a 20th-century small lean-to. A 20th-century window sits at ground floor to the left. The cross-wing gable end, to the left, has an external stack with curved oven at the base and a 20th-century porch set in the angle.

Internally, the main range sits at a lower floor level than the cross wing. Some ceiling beams are 19th-century replacements; others are very roughly hewn and chamfered. The rear lateral fireplace to the hall has granite jambs and lintel, hollow-chamfered with run-out stops. A cloam oven with clay door occupies the rear right. In the stair tower to the rear, a 19th-century four-panelled door leads to the outshut to the rear left. The stair is a wide dog-leg of the 17th century, with turned balusters and a wide moulded handrail. At first floor, the feet of the principal rafters are boxed in. The roof space, not fully accessible, reveals principal rafters that are halved and pegged, roughly hewn, with purlins resting on the backs of the principal rafters. The cross-wing has 19th-century ceiling beams at ground floor and a fireplace with cloam oven.