Netherexe Barton

Netherexe Barton is a substantial farmhouse dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, forming one side of a courtyard with a stable block and barns. Originally built with a three-room, through-passage plan, it later included a parlour wing to the rear on the right and a buttery to the rear on the left. The house is constructed of cob, rendered on a stone plinth, with a gabled-end thatched roof. The roof incorporates jointed cruck trusses, with possible smoke-blackening visible between the kitchen and hall. The house has two storeys throughout. The long front elevation has a late-medieval all-stone stack towards the right end, featuring two set-offs, the topmost one moulded. A slight buttress marks the right-hand angle, and a left-hand stack has been dismantled. Two front doorways are present; the left-hand one, situated left of centre, has a cyma-recta moulded surround with scroll stops, leading to a door with fielded panels above and plain panels below. This doorway originally gave access to the through passage. The right-hand door is later and is sheltered by a small slate canopy to the right and a wooden trellis porch to the left. Windows are timber casements with 3 and 4 lights, largely replacements from the 19th or 20th centuries, but retaining an original irregular disposition, with four above and three below the ground floor. Inside the left-hand room are Thorverton stone jambs and a wooden lintel, with two small stone arches at the foot of the right-hand jamb. A chamfered lintel is above the door to the buttery. The large kitchen fireplace beam has a substantial chamfer and an integrated back oven. The room to the right of the passage, formerly the hall, has a rear fireplace with Thorverton stone jambs and a wooden lintel with cyma-reversa mouldings, and two massive chamfered beams. A newel staircase has been remodelled to the right of the fireplace. The extreme right-hand room, likely an inner chamber or parlour, contains a small fireplace with stone jambs and a chamfered wooden lintel, and connects to the small parlour wing. Above this room is a chamber with an early 17th-century plaster ceiling featuring a central pendant lined by curved double ribs to four moulded open squares, with moulded diamond motifs at each corner incorporating thistle and/or rose designs. Floral plaster decoration is found on the purlins, and a floral motif on the sloping soffits. A 17th-century moulded plaster cornise is on the landing. A cyma-reversa moulding is visible on the first-floor fireplace beam. The courtyard is completed by good 19th-century farm buildings attached to the house, with weatherboarded fronts arranged around a cobbled yard, and retains early 19th-century timber gates.