Westcott Farmhouse Including Byre And Linhay Adjoining To East

Westcott Farmhouse, including adjoining byre and linhay to the east, is a farmhouse dating from the 16th century with 17th, 18th and 19th-century improvements, alterations and additions. The building is constructed of cob on rubble footings, plastered to the front and exposed to the rear. The rubble chimneys are mostly topped with 19th and 20th-century brick. The main house has a slate roof, whilst the byre, linhay and dairy have corrugated iron roofs, all formerly thatched.

The building is a long, rambling structure facing south and built down a slope. The core of the house follows a much-altered 3-room-and-through-passage plan with an inner room towards the left (west) and a late 18th to early 19th-century 2-room parlour extension at the left end. A 16th or 17th-century byre with hayloft over adjoins the right (east) end of the service room, with an 18th-century linhay offset back from the main front at the right end. A small 17th-century dairy block stands at right angles to the rear of the hall. The building is 2 storeys tall with an irregular frontage and varied fenestration.

The roofline steps down three times, breaking the front into four sections. The late 18th to early 19th-century extension at the left end has a 2-window front with late 19th-century horned 16-pane sashes and a small 4-pane sash to the stairhead. Left of centre is an irregular 3-window front to the former inner room, hall and passage, mostly with late 19th-century casements with glazing bars. The inner room has late 19th-century French windows with margin panes of coloured glass behind a 20th-century glass-roofed conservatory, and a late 19th-century door with glazed panel including margin lights of coloured glass behind a 20th-century gabled and corrugated iron roofed porch. A plain door inserted to the hall sits to the right, with a window to its right blocking the original front passage doorway. The third section includes the service end and byre with plain plank doors to each room and a late 19th-century casement with glazing bars over the service room and a loading hatch to the byre hayloft. A small implement shed stands on the right end of the byre. The right end section, set back from the main front, is an 8-bay linhay with its roof hipped at the end.

The hall stack has an original rubble chimney shaft with dripcourse and coping. The rear elevation shows exposed cob and rubble with several rubble blockings and alterations to the original house. The late 18th to early 19th-century extension has rubble to first floor level with cob above. The few rear windows are late 19th to early 20th-century casements with glazing bars.

The interior demonstrates a house with a long and complex structural history. A continuous roof spans the inner room, hall, passage, service room and byre, comprising side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with trenched purlins and ridge. The roof space is inaccessible over the hall and inner room, preventing assessment of early smoke-blackening. Many early features in the original house are hidden by later plaster.

The hall contains a large stone rubble fireplace with a plain-chamfered oak lintel, with crossbeams plastered over in the 19th century. The inner room has a late 17th-century plaster ceiling with moulded plaster cornice, also carried around a probably earlier cross beam. The inner room fireplace is blocked. The former passage is blocked by a brick and rubble oven and smoking chamber arrangement, likely dating to the 18th century. The service room has a 17th-century chamfered and straight cut stopped crossbeam and is separated from the byre by a blind cob crosswall. The byre has a probably 17th-century massive plain-chamfered crossbeam, with a jointed cruck roof and framed division between first floor rooms over the service room and byre suggesting they are contemporary.

The late 18th to early 19th-century extension was refurbished in the late 19th century and has an A-frame truss roof with pegged lap-jointed collars. The open-fronted linhay at the right end has massive oak posts resting on stone pads of Alcock Type T1, with posts and hayloft beams appearing earlier than the late 18th to early 19th-century A-frame roof trusses which have pegged lap-jointed collars. The right end bay has a secondary front cob wall.

This is an interesting unmodernised farmhouse.