West Kennet Farmhouse

West Kennet Farmhouse is a two-storey farmhouse of 17th-century origin with 18th-century extension and 19th-century modification, built of large squared and coursed sarson stone with brick elements and brick stacks, under a plain tile roof.

The building forms an L-plan that is not now easy to decipher, though it may originally have been a three-room cross-passage structure running north-east, with a return wing running east-west added later, or possibly this wing was an original service end. There is no early staircase, but one was probably associated with the large stack in the cross-passage wing.

The interior arms of the L are detailed as follows. The early wing has at each floor two and three-light casements to late 19th-century brick segmental heads, positioned off-centre to the left. A six-panel fielded door sits beneath a flat hood on brackets. A plain gable return stands to the left, with a small brick stack. The interior face of the return wing displays two and three-light casements at each level, and a blocked opening to a former door. To the right is a lower extension with hipped roof and panelled door.

The outer, or east, face of the early wing has one and three windows, mainly two-light casements, one positioned in a former door opening to the cross passage and now infilled with brick below. Far left is a one-storey canted bay with four-pane sashes. The hipped return forms the south elevation, which has at ground floor a two-light casement, a 20th-century door under a tiled lean-to, a small single light, and a pair of French doors on two steps. The first floor has two two-light and one single-light casements. Brick and part-boarded extension extends to the left. Brick stacks rise at the original outer gable and at the ridge on the return at the right end.

The interior reveals considerable historical detail. A room beyond a stone-flagged passage contains two rough chamfered beams and 19th-century shutters to one window. The centre room features a large bressummer fireplace in 18th or early 19th-century brickwork and two transverse chamfered beams with lamb's-tongue stops. The end room, with canted bay, has a 20th-century fireplace probably concealing an earlier example of interest, and one beam with beaded edge.

The return wing contains a good five-panel fielded door to the stair, and a central dairy or pantry with splat baluster ventilation over panelling, giving to a stone-flagged room. A secondary lower space in brick flooring is also present; here a spine beam with chamfer is carried through only part of the width of the lower unit. A large end room functions as a kitchen with stone-flagged floor and two transverse beams. A room beyond contains a pump and tanks.

First-floor rooms show little historical detail in evidence. The dog-leg stair is 19th-century, with a short run of turned baluster balustrade at the top, and a raised area similar to a landing but at a higher level, between stair and outer wall.

The roofs throughout are excellent pegged and numbered collar principals. In the east wing the collars have a central section cut out in basket-handle form, with two purlins. Good wide early boarding is evident to the floors, and two spine beams with chamfer are set upside-down. At the hipped return is a plastered tympanum above a diagonal collar with cut-out. Early rafters are present throughout. The roof structure comprises four bays plus splay to each roof.