Westown Farmhouse

Westown Farmhouse is a mid-16th century farmhouse. One of the two rear wings dates to the 17th century, with later alterations. The building is constructed of random rubble flint and has a gable-end slate roof. Originally, it was a four-room, through-passage plan house, with the hall and inner room to the left of the passage, and a contemporary wing to the rear. A service end is divided into two rooms by a modern fireplace, though it contains a stone stack and shaft. The extreme right-hand room (unheated) has a blocked drain, suggesting it may have once been a shippon. A 17th-century wing is situated to the rear of the lower end, featuring a large end fireplace and likely serving as a kitchen. The hall is heated by a stone axial stack backing onto the passage, while the earlier wing is heated by an internal lateral stack (to the inner face). The house always appears to have been of two storeys.

The front elevation has a four-window range. The first floor has 19th-century two and three-light casement windows, one with stanchions, while the ground floor has plain, chamfered, four-centred stone arches to the passage, along with casement and sash windows. Buttressing is visible. On the right-hand elevation, a projection under a catslide close to the junction of wing and main range could have been a former newel stair turret. Otherwise, the right-hand elevation has 19th and 20th-century casement windows. The left-wing end elevation is largely concealed by an adjacent linhay. The rear elevation of the 17th-century wing has no windows to either the end or inner face; the earlier wing has a French window and casement windows. Between the two wings are some later additions, and a pointed stone doorway arch (originally opposing that to the front) has been re-set.

Inside, the hall and inner room were originally divided by a plank and muntin screen, of which only a fragment survives; a partition extends above it through the first floor. A doorway from the hall into the rear wing, chamfered with cranked lintels and morticed into heavy studs acting as jambs, was uncovered since Commander Williams’ visit in 1982. The roof has six trusses with straight principals, and was described in detail in Commander E.H.D Williams’ report in the NMR (1982), and more briefly in Period Home, Vol. 5, no. 6 (July 1984), pp. 59-60.