Westacott Farmhouse

Westacott Farmhouse is probably of late 15th century origin, with significant alterations in the 16th and 17th centuries and modernization in the late 19th century and 20th. A modern extension was also added. The farmhouse is constructed of plastered cob on rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks topped with 19th and 20th century brickwork, and a thatched roof, including a small slated section. It originally had a 3-room-and-through-passage plan, facing south, with an inner room at the east end. The service end room was divided into two in the 20th century. Projecting end stacks are visible to the service and inner rooms, and a projecting front lateral stack is present to the hall, with a hall window in a projecting bay. A projecting newel stair turret is located at the rear of the hall. Rear outshots, including a flat-roofed two-storey extension to the service room, were added in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The front has an irregular 2:1:1 window arrangement with a variety of late 19th and 20th century casement windows with glazing bars. The front door, located to the left of centre in the passage, features a late 19th century panelled door with Gothic-style hinges, and a contemporary rubble porch with a plain elliptical-headed outer arch and gabled slate roof. Immediately to the right of the doorway is a large stack and hall bay with its own gabled roof. The roof adjacent to the hall stack and bay is slated. The roof is gable-ended to the right and hipped to the left.

Internally, several periods of work are evident. The oldest exposed structural feature is the two-bay roof over the hall and passage, divided by full-height cob crosswalls. One truss is a jointed cruck fixed by two face pegs and a slip tenon, likely dating back to the late 15th century. It is expected to be smoke-blackened, although the roofspace is inaccessible. The hall fireplace was introduced in the late 16th or early 17th century, but has undergone rebuilding and the original fireplace has not been found. A late 16th or early 17th century oak doorframe to the newel stair in the rear wall has a chamfered surround with run-out stops. The hall was floored sometime in the 17th century with unstopped soffit-chamfered crossbeams. The inner room has a late 16th or early 17th century soffit-chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam, and a rubble fireplace with a roughly-finished oak lintel, likely from the late 17th or 18th century. In the passage, the headbeam of an oak plank-and-muntin screen is visible, though its survival is obscured. The service room appears to have been rebuilt in the late 17th or 18th century, with roughly-finished crossbeams and a similar oak lintel to the rubble fireplace. Aside from the hall and passage roof, the rest of the structure is supported by A-frame trusses of 17th or 18th century date; only the feet of the trusses are visible.