Blue Ball Farmhouse

PAYHEMBURY ST 00 SE 3/79 Blue Ball Farmhouse - - II

Farmhouse. Late C17, mid C19 dairy outshot, modernised circa 1985. Plastered walls, most is plastered cob on stone rubble footings but much of the front is stone rubble; stone rubble or cob stack with C19 brick chimneyshaft; slate roof with diamond pattern, formerly thatch. Plan: 3-room lobby entrance plan house facing south. At the right end is a small room with an end stack. This stack is an insertion. It was a dairy or buttery originally. Next to it is the former kitchen and at the left (west) end a parlour. An axial stack between the former kitchen and parlour serves back-to-back fireplaces and there is a lobby entrance in front of this stack. This bay is broken very slightly forward from the rest of the front. A winder stair rises in a turret projecting to rear of the stack. Circa 1985 a C19 dairy block projecting to rear from the right end was converted to a kitchen and service outshots built across the back of the house. The main house is 2 storeys. Exterior: 1:1:2-window front of C19 oak-framed casements with glazing bars and including, first floor left end an original oak 3-light frame with flat-faced mullions. (There is another similar original window to rear lighting the stairs). The front doorway is in the projecting bay left of centre and it contains a C19 plank door. The roof is hipped both ends. Interior: contains a great detail of late C17 carpentry detail. The parlour has a roughly chamfered axial beam; it was probably plastered originally. The fireplace here is plastered but has its original chamfered oak lintel with the remains of scroll stops. The former kitchen crossbeam is chamfered with bar-scroll-nick stops. It has a larger plastered fireplace with a plain oak lintel. It includes a large bread oven which is housed under the rising staircase. Old timber gun brackets are fixed to the chimneybreast. No carpentry shows in the former buttery/dairy. The staircase balustrade is C17 in style and apparently reuses lengths of the original handrail. The fireplace in the chamber over the former kitchen is original; it is brick with curving pentan (back) and has a plain oak lintel. Roof is carried on original A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars. The present kitchen has plain C19 carpentry details.

Listing NGR: ST0945901188