Barns Approximately 3 Metres North Of Pencepool Farmhouse

These are a group of barns dating to the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, located approximately 3 metres north of Pencepool Farmhouse. The buildings are constructed from a variety of materials, with the oldest section featuring dressed blocks of local hard sandstone laid in courses, with larger quoins. The remaining walls are primarily cob on stone rubble footings, with some brick and 20th-century concrete block patching. The roofs are now clad in corrugated iron and asbestos, having been previously thatched.

The barns consist of a long building divided into two main blocks, positioned along the road and facing north-west. The longer block to the north-east is composed of two barns built end-to-end, each with opposing central doorways leading onto the threshing floors. A carriageway separates the blocks, and had a roof until recently. The barn on the right is the oldest, likely dating to the 16th century. The carriageway and the barn directly to its right may be contemporary, or alternatively date to the late 16th or early 17th century. The barn on the left end is probably from the late 17th or early 18th century, although its roof was replaced in the 20th century. This barn was used as a cider house during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The left-end barn has exposed cob on stone rubble footings, but a central section of the front, including large double doors, has been rebuilt in late 19th or early 20th-century brick. The right barn features coursed masonry and a full-height central doorway flanked by small projecting midstrey walls. The double doors are from the 19th century. The block at the right end is plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with 19th-century brick patching, and contains a small ground floor window and a larger first-floor window, the latter likely adapted from a former hayloft loading hatch. All roofs are gable-ended.

Inside the left-end barn, the roof structure was replaced in the 20th century, but a 19th-century cider press remains. The right barn has a two-bay roof, the central truss being a jointed cruck held together by pegged slip tenons, considered an early style and possibly dating to the 16th century, though potentially earlier. A solid wall separates the two barns, but not either side of the carriageway, which itself is open and flanked by side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. Two similar trusses support the roof over the right block, which is also open-ended. A reused oak plank-and-muntin screen with a crank-headed doorway lines the barn side of the carriageway, though it has been erected upside down. The farm buildings contribute to a visually appealing setting alongside Pencepool Farmhouse and its front garden wall, and are an early example of farm buildings in Devon.