Old Farmhouse With Integral Barn At East Barton

Old Farmhouse with Integral Barn at East Barton

A farmhouse with integral barn and shippon, dating from the 16th century and remodelled with house extension in the 17th century. The building is constructed of rendered cob with some later stone rubble rebuilding, and has a corrugated iron roof replacing original thatch. It stands on Exeter Road at East Barton, Tiverton.

The building originally comprised an unfloored open hall with integral shippon and threshing barn. The main range is 8 bays long with wide bays divided by original trusses. The 2-room house end occupies 3 bays on the left with a half passage to its right. The passage and higher end room are floored over and jettied over the hall; the jetties and the 2 trusses above them are smoke-blackened. The hall itself was floored at a slightly higher level in the 17th century, and a lateral stack was inserted at the same time. A 17th-century wing extends at right angles to the rear of the higher end of the house, with an outshut attached to its right. A later building is attached at the far right (relating to East Barton Farmhouse, which is listed separately and not included in this listing).

The exterior now presents 2-storey elevations owing to the insertion of floors in the 17th century. The house front is a 1-window range with 2 ground-floor windows and a doorway to its right. There is a 16th or early 17th-century oak outer frame window to the ground-floor left, followed by a resited 17th-century oak ovolo-moulded 3-light mullioned window and an original chamfered oak arched doorway of shouldered construction with a crude 4-centred arch. The barn front to the right features window over window opening on the left (the shippon part), then a tall narrow opening with door over door, a small ground-floor window opening, and a wide doorway fronting the threshing floor with its timber lintel just under the eaves. A doorway in the rear wall appears to retain its original oak frame.

The left-hand return elevation is a 1-window range with a window opening above the doorway into the wing and another window opening to its left, followed by a doorway into the left-hand end of the original house. The end wall of the house is buttressed at ground-floor level; part of the wall above has been removed and is replaced with corrugated iron. The rear end of the wing is unrendered cob with a crude central window frame. The gable end is unusually constructed of woven wattle with cob daub.

The interior contains 7 side-pegged jointed cruck oak trusses to the main range, mostly complete, though the truss second from the right lacks a front post and collar, and one other truss at the barn end is missing a collar. Original purlins survive, halved where they meet over the truss blades, and some spars remain from when the roof was thatched. The 2 trusses over the hall are smoke-blackened, while those over the shippon and barn are clean. This is explained by the survival of part of a former full-height partition of studwork and lath with plastered upper half, which separates the domestic end from the agricultural end. The floors over the entry and over the room at the higher end appear to be original; both are jettied over the hall with rounded joist ends from underneath and are smoke-blackened. An original muntin and plank screen blocks the cobbled passage halfway in, forming a small closet or pantry beyond. Mortice socket evidence in the crossbeam left of the passage indicates a former muntin and plank screen dividing the passage from the hall. The later flooring of the hall sits at a higher level but is also smoke-blackened, with a broad-chamfered crossbeam midway between the jetties. The simple lateral fireplace is of reduced depth due to removal of the external part of the breast. Original oak doorways of similar detail and construction to the front doorway connect the hall and the room at the higher end, and the passage and shippon (the latter retaining an old planked door); another similar doorway leads between the rear wing and its outshut, possibly relating to a former staircase. There is no evidence that the room at the higher end of the hall was ever heated.

The wing has 1 jointed cruck truss of similar construction to those of the main building. Its floor features a broad-chamfered crossbeam similar to the inserted crossbeam of the hall and probably of the same date. A splayed corner to the rear right of the wing may be the remains of a corner fireplace. The shippon has a 17th-century broad-chamfered oak axial beam, probably contemporary with the flooring of the hall, with later joists. Other floors at this end are of much later date.

This is a very rare and probably unique building in Devon, representing an evolved form of the longhouse and incorporating not just a shippon but a barn, all under one roof. The house retains considerable evidence of its development and former function through having undergone little modern alteration. The survival of such a large early roof, the 2 jettied floors, the arched doorways, and the fact that this is the only known example of this plan type combine to make this an outstanding and special building of considerable interest.