Ford Barton

Ford Barton is a former farmhouse dating from the early 16th century, remodelled in the early 17th century with an extension and rearrangement in the late 17th century, followed by 19th-century refurbishment and late 19th and 20th-century re-roofing. The building is constructed of roughcast, probably cob and stone, with a slate roof gabled at the ends. It has end stacks and an axial stack, all with brick shafts.

The house is two storeys, presenting an asymmetrical five-window front with the front door positioned to the right of centre, facing a straight stair. The windows are mostly 2-light early 19th-century small-pane timber casements, except for a 3-light window lighting the 17th-century hall and a late 20th-century window on the first floor left. Lean-to structures adjoin at the left end and front. The rear elevation has irregular fenestration with three first-floor and three ground-floor windows.

The building's plan is single depth, four rooms wide. Its evolution is complex, beginning as a late medieval open hall, possibly extending the full length of the present three right-hand rooms. The house was floored in the late 16th or early 17th century, at which point a hall stack was added, backing onto a cross or through passage. A rounded wall suggests there may have been a newel stair in the rear right corner of the inner left-hand room. In the late 17th century, a kitchen was added at the left end, adjoining the inner room which was partitioned off at the rear, forming a rear axial passage. This transformed the inner room into an unheated dairy between the kitchen and hall. Either in the 18th or 19th century, a straight stair was inserted in the old cross or through passage, and a second stair was inserted between the inner room and the early 17th-century hall, accessed from the axial corridor. In the mid to late 19th century, the lower-end room, which is larger than the hall, was re-floored and refurbished for use as a parlour or sitting room.

Interior features from each phase survive. Two smoke-blackened trusses with the remains of diagonally-set ridge, rafters and battens from the late medieval open hall exist below a later roof structure. The principal rafters, plastered over in the first-floor rooms, are probably jointed crucks. From the early 17th century, two chamfered axial beams with pyramid stops remain in the hall, and a chamfered axial beam in the former inner room may also date from this phase. The hall fireplace has a 20th-century grate, which may conceal the original early 17th-century fireplace. The kitchen has a roughly-chamfered cross beam with step stops, dating from the late 17th century, and although the fireplace is blocked, an early lintel survives beneath later wall and plaster. The lower-end room has a 19th-century cross beam and a marbled chimneypiece. The first-floor rooms open into one another but are partitioned off at the rear, forming large closets.

Ford Barton is part of the Cruwys Estate and may be the "Ford" first documented in the 14th century.