Osmonds Farmhouse

CULMSTOCK ST 11 SW 10/42 Osmonds Farmhouse - - II Small farmhouse. Mid C17. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; probably cob stack topped with C20 brick; thatch roof, replaced with corrugated iron over pump house. Plan: 4-room plan farmhouse facing south-west and built down a gentle slope. Downhill at the left (north-west) end there is a small unheated agricultural store. The largest rooms are the central rooms and an axial stack between them serves back- to-back fireplaces. The one left of centre was the original kitchen and that right of centre the hall or parlour. The small unheated room at the right end is now used as a kitchen. Central front lobby entrance in front of stack. The main stair is a newel staircase in the thickness of the front wall in the hall next to the lobby. This is a single phase house and has been floored from the beginning. Alongside and left of the front doorway a small pump house projects forward. This may be an original feature; it is cob-walled. Left of that is a C20 dairy outshot. Farmhouse is 2 storeys. Exterior: irregular 2-window front of mostly late C19 - early C20 casements, those on the first floor half dormers. The hall has a contemporary horned 4-pane sash and the stair has its original window, a tiny oak 2-light window. The front doorway contains a late C19 -early C20 plank door behind a contemporary gabled porch. The main roof is half hipped each end. The pump house is gable-ended. Interior: is mostly the result of the late C19 - early C20 modernisation. Nevertheless this seems to have been superficial since the plaster has been stripped from the carpentry in the hall/parlour and the fireplace opened up and the original features are intact. The fireplace has an oak-framed front and contains a C19 oven. The crossbeam has deep soffit chamfers with step stops. At the upper end the crosswall is an oak, close-studded frame. Of the roof only one side-pegged jointed cruck truss is exposed but others are suspected boxed into the partitions. Osmonds is a well-preserved mid C17 small farmhouse.

Listing NGR: ST1049213041