Rocknell Farmhouse Including Granary Adjoining The South East End

Rocknell Farmhouse including Granary Adjoining the South-East End

Rocknell Farmhouse is a grade II listed house, formerly known as Rockwell, located in Burlescombe. It is a former farmhouse that may once have incorporated a mill. The building dates from the early 17th century with alterations from the late 17th and early 18th centuries, refurbishment in the late 19th century, and a granary extension built around 1910.

The building is constructed of colour-washed local stone rubble with stone rubble chimneystack, one retaining its original stone rubble chimneyshaft, whilst others are topped with 19th and 20th century brick. The roof is thatch over the main house with slate covering the granary extension.

The house follows an unusual T-plan with a complex layout comprising five rooms overall. The main block faces north-east, backing onto a stream. At the north-west end is a small unheated room whose original function is unknown, now with an inserted gable-end stack. Next to it is the main hall with a large axial stack backing onto the north-west room. A further small room, originally divided axially into two parts (probably a dairy and connecting lobby), adjoins the hall. Projecting forward at right angles is a kitchen block with a gable-end stack containing the main stair from the hall, now a late 19th century replacement. The next room in the main block is large with a secondary rear lateral stack and may have been used as a mill in the 17th century, though its domestic function is unclear. A granary of around 1910 adjoins at the south-east end. A late 19th and early 20th century service outshot (now the kitchen) extends across the front to the right of the original kitchen block. The building is two storeys with original attics in the roofspace over the house section.

The front elevation displays three windows of 19th and 20th century replacement casements with glazing bars to the left of the kitchen block. The mill front doorway is centrally located in this section and now contains a 20th century door constructed from 17th century panelling. At the left end, doorways on each floor lead to the granary extension, the upper one accessed by an external flight of stone steps. The kitchen and rear wall contain further 19th and 20th century replacement casements with glazing bars, and there is a 17th century oak two-light window with a chamfered mullion to the rear of the hall stack. The main block is gable-ended to the left and half-hipped to the right, while the kitchen block is gable-ended with the projecting stack displaying weathered offsets.

Interior features are notable and comprehensive. All rooms in the house have soffit-chamfered beams with lamb's tongue stops; there are four more similar beams in the long mill room. In the hall, the fireplace was rebuilt forward in the late 19th century, though the original is believed to survive behind. The opposite crosswall is an oak plank-and-muntin screen containing a pair of central doorways with cambered heads and chamfered surrounds with step stops. Two more similar doorways open off the stair landing to the main block chambers, a third to the kitchen chamber, and another survives in the roofspace from the former stair to the attics. The late 19th century replacement stair only extends to the first floor. The kitchen features a large fireplace with a plain chamfered oak lintel.

On the first floor, the kitchen chamber ceiling is carried on soffit-chamfered crossbeams with lamb's tongue stops. Those in the main block are plastered over. Only the hall and dairy section of the main block roof is original, carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with high slightly-curving collars. A lower crossbeam carrying the bedchamber ceiling is fixed into each truss. The remainder of the roof was replaced in the late 17th or early 18th century with A-frame trusses featuring pegged and spiked lap-jointed collars and X-apexes. The granary has plain carpentry detail. Throughout the house there is considerable introduced 20th century joinery detail in 17th century style.

This is a single-phase house of considerable interest, built alongside a stream and apparently incorporating a mill. The site is first mentioned in a charter of 958, where it was called Ruwan Cnol.