Great Wotton Farmhouse

Farmhouse. Likely dating back to the 16th century, it was rebuilt and enlarged in the early 17th century, with modernisation occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries. The walls are plastered cob on rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks topped with 19th and 20th-century brickwork, and a thatched roof. It is an L-shaped house consisting of a long, south-facing main block featuring a 30-room-and-through-passage plan, with a large service room (now converted to a garage) at the right (east) end. The hall and passage section projects slightly forward from the main front. A 17th-century kitchen wing is set at right angles to the rear of the main block's inner room. 20th-century outshot blocks extend from the rear passage doorway in the angle of the two wings. The hall and inner room have rear lateral stacks, while the kitchen has an end stack. The house has two storeys and a regular five-window front featuring a variety of 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars. A 4-light window on the first floor at the right end retains a 17th-century oak frame, including two ovolo-moulded mullions. Below this window is a 20th-century wide garage doorway. The front passage doorway reportedly remained open until 1910, when a 17th-century style doorframe was erected to accommodate an original 17th-century plank door hung on strap hinges with fleur-de-lys finials and with moulded cover strips, creating a 20-panel front. The right end of the roof has been partly rebuilt with 20th-century brick. Internally, the main block displays 18th and 19th-century plasterwork and joinery, though the original layout remains and earlier features are likely concealed. Specifically, the hall fireplace represents earlier detail. A broad coved cornice at the upper end of the hall may be evidence of a 16th or 17th-century internal jetty. The service room is divided from the passage by a full-height cob crosswall and exhibits plain chamfered crossbeams. The kitchen wing retains 17th-century features including an oak door frame with an ovolo-moulded and scroll stopped surround from the 20th-century outshot and a crossbeam that is also ovolo-moulded with scroll stops. The stack in the kitchen wing was rebuilt around 1920 following its collapse. The roof across the entire building was raised and rebuilt in the 18th century with A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars, those over the kitchen range being of more slender scantling. In the left (western) gable end of the main block, the previous lower roofline is visible internally in the cob. According to the owners, the farm was leased from the church until 1910 and the lease terms required the tenant to keep the passage open and provide food and drink to anyone passing through. This requirement ended with the sale of the property, and the church installed the front passage door at that time.