Easton Barton Farmhouse

Easton Barton Farmhouse is a large farmhouse of gentry quality with medieval origins, substantially rebuilt in the early or mid-16th century and further improved and extended in the late 16th and 17th centuries.

The main block comprises a hall with through passage, flanked by a west crosswing projecting forward and rear at the upper end, and an east service crosswing projecting to the rear only on the lower side of the passage. A projecting newel stair turret sits in the angle between the hall and west wing to the right of the front, with a rear bay projection also in the same angle. The walls are built of crudely squared blocks of mudstone and volcanic trap roughly laid to courses in the main block, with wings of mudstone and trap rubble. The east wing includes a section of plastered cob on rubble footings. Stone stacks, some topped with 20th-century brick, serve the building. The roofs are of late 19th-century orange-red tile, with corrugated iron covering the rear of the east wing. The building is two storeys throughout.

The main north-facing front is irregular. The hall frontage comprises two windows with an early to mid-16th-century passage doorway at the left end. The doorway is a two-centred granite arch with a moulded surround, broach stops, and a volcanic hoodmould. The two ground floor hall windows are contemporary with the doorway. Both are tall, built of granite with moulded volcanic stone hoods and relieving arches over. The single light left window has a central transom with round-headed lights, sunken spandrels, hollow moulded surround and reveal. The two-light right window is similar but has square-headed lower lights. A single 20th-century casement occupies the first floor. The newel stair turret to the right is three-sided and includes small granite lights with flat-arched, almost round heads and iron stanchions and saddle bars. The west wing at the right end has a 20th-century door and casements without glazing bars under 20th-century concrete lintels. The front end of the east wing is blind and built of cob on rubble footings. The hall roof includes bands of fish scale and is carried down over the newel stair turret. The west wing has plain red tile roof, hipped. The east wing roof steps down from the hall, plain red tile and hipped.

The outer east wing elevation is in two sections. The cob and rubble front section to the right has a 20th-century casement with glazing bars on each floor and includes some pilaster buttressing of uncertain function. The rear rubble section includes a single 20th-century window on each floor and shows blocking of two further first-floor windows. The roof on the lower level is corrugated iron.

The rear south elevation of the hall is similar in style to the front. A similar early to mid-16th-century granite arched door to the rear of the passage sits on the right, now within a 20th-century outshot of the east wing. A large projecting hall stack in the centre has an original tall stone shaft. A projecting two-storey bay to the left of the stack has its own pitched roof parallel to the hall. The hall and front of the bay have granite two-light mullion-and-central-transom windows identical to those on the front, and both first-floor windows are 20th-century casements. The gable end of the oriel has small early to mid-16th-century windows on each floor: a ground-floor granite single light with ogee head and sunken spandrels, and a first-floor plain oak single light with cinquefoil head. Some curious breaks in the masonry of the hall may indicate the survival of late medieval fabric. The end of the west wing to the left has a 20th-century pentice roof across the front, 20th-century casements and door, with a hipped roof. The east wing has a 20th-century door and loading hatch in the gable end.

The interior is of good quality. Access was not possible at the time of survey, but several features are known to exist. The hall is particularly well-preserved. The passage includes a granite arched doorway. The roof comprises side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with cambered collars and chamfered arch braces. It is not smoke-blackened. A stone newel stair serves the building. The hall has a six-panel intersecting beam ceiling with moulded edges. It is possible the hall was floored from the beginning, as the windows fit well and the roof is relatively plain. The bay is said to have housed a first-floor chapel. The ground floor of the bay has a late 17th-century moulded plaster cornice. Jointed crucks are also reported from an unspecified wing. According to a circa 1930 plan made by A W Everett, now in the National Monuments Record, the east wing houses a massive kitchen fireplace.

Easton Barton is a high quality house with an unusually well-preserved hall. Very little is known of its history.