Elston Barton Including Adjoining Cob Walls On South And East

Elston Barton is a farmhouse of major architectural and historical significance, with a core dating from the late 15th to early 16th century, substantially improved during the 16th and 17th centuries, and further extended and modernised in the 19th century. The building is constructed of plastered cob on rubble footings, with volcanic stone chimney stacks topped with 19th-century brick, and a thatched roof.

The house is L-shaped in plan. The main block now faces south and follows a traditional 3-room-and-through-passage arrangement, with an inner room at the west end. A late 16th to early 17th-century parlour block projects forward from the inner room, and a dairy and chamber extension was built onto the service room in the late 17th century. The building now stands two storeys throughout.

The south front displays an irregular arrangement of five windows of 19th and 20th-century casement types of various sizes, most retaining glazing bars, with the exception of a horizontal sliding sash at the right end. A front passage door positioned left of centre retains its original 17th-century solid oak plank door within a bead-moulded door frame, crowned with a 19th-century hood on shaped wooden brackets. The roof is half-hipped to the right. The gable end of the parlour wing includes 19th-century 16-pane sashes.

The rear elevation, which represents the original main front of the building, is interrupted by adjoining farm courtyard walls. It contains three early 17th-century oak window frames: a 4-light frame to the service room, a 2-light frame to the chamber over the passage (both with ovolo-moulded mullions), and a 4-light frame to the inner room featuring the unusual refinement of wave-moulded mullions. A late 17th-century first-floor 3-light flat-faced mullion window over a door retains its iron casement and leaded panes. The rear door and hood are similar to those at the front, though not positioned directly opposite.

The interior preserves exceptional evidence of the building's development. The earliest structural feature is a late 15th to early 16th-century smoke-blackened cruck roof truss, possibly jointed, positioned over the upper side of the passage. It is fitted with a cambered collar and seating for a square-set ridge. Flanking this on either side are clean late 16th to early 17th-century side-pegged jointed crucks, likely erected at the time the hall stack was inserted. The hall stack itself is a striking feature: an unusually tall volcanic stone fireplace with an oak lintel and chamfered surround, accompanied by a surviving section of contemporary oak plank-and-muntin screen positioned flush with the fireplace front.

The hall floor dates from the early to mid-17th century and is supported on two richly-moulded crossbeams with leaf-decorated step stops. The service room contains an early 17th-century massive volcanic stone kitchen fireplace with a replacement lintel.

The early 17th-century parlour wing originally contained more elaborate features, most of which were removed or concealed during 19th-century alterations. However, the ground floor volcanic stone fireplace has been exposed in the 20th century with a replacement lintel, and the roof space retains remains of a side-pegged jointed cruck truss with cambered collars and threaded purlins.

A widespread late 17th-century refurbishment introduced several distinctive features that survive: a round-headed arch with applied architrave and keystone, loading from the hall to the stairwell in the inner room (now occupied by 20th-century stairs), and on the first-floor landing, a 2-panel door with strap hinges and fleur-de-lys terminals. The roof over the inner room and dairy extension was constructed at the same period, though the dairy extension received a mid to late 19th-century replacement roof.

High plastered cob walls on rubble footings extend southwards from the parlour wing to shelter the front garden and eastwards from the dairy to enclose the kitchen garden. These adjoining walls are included in the listing.

Elston Barton represents a multi-phase house of considerable quality, probably of gentry status. Documentary evidence, in the form of surviving deeds, establishes that the house belonged to Philip Elston of Crediton in 1664. The building's frontage to the farmyard, together with associated farm buildings, creates a well-preserved and evocative group.