Henceford Farmhouse

Farmhouse. It likely dates from the mid-16th century, with significant alterations in the later 16th and 17th centuries, and a late 19th- to early 20th-century extension. The walls are plastered cob on rubble footings, with rubble stacks topped with 20th-century brick and a corrugated asbestos roof, originally thatched. The long building faces south and has a 4-room-and-through-passage plan, meaning the room at the west end was originally separated from the hall by a lobby room. A projecting newel stair turret is at the rear of the lobby. The right (service) end was extended in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is a projecting stack to the inner room/parlour, an axial stack backing onto the passage to the hall, and a rear lateral stack to the service room. The front has an irregular 6-window arrangement of 20th-century iron-framed casements without glazing bars. A 20th-century door is located on the passage to the right of the centre, and 20th-century French windows with glazing bars are in the former lobby. The roof is hipped to the right and gable-ended to the left. The hall and inner rooms retain original broad stone rubble chimney shafts with dripcourses and coping, now topped with brick. The interior is of good quality. The oldest feature appears to be a side-pegged jointed cruck truss over the hall, which may show signs of smoke-blackening, suggesting a possible original open hearth fire in the hall. A possibly contemporary oak plank-and-muntin screen is at the upper end of the hall. It has chamfered muntins with roll stops, high enough to accommodate a bench below, and an arched doorway. The house was extensively refurbished in the early or mid-17th century, and most of the exposed features date from that period. The hall has a rubble fireplace with a massive timber corbel carrying a soffit-chamfered lintel with straight cut stops. The hall beam is also chamfered with roll stops. A plank-and-muntin screen between the lobby and inner room/parlour was removed relatively recently. The parlour has double-ovolo moulded crossbeams with bar-scroll stops. The rubble fireplace has a replacement lintel. Partitions either side of the lobby extend upwards, and their oak framing is visible in the roofspace. These are identical closed trusses with unusually-shaped dovetail lap-jointed collars. The section above the collars has never been filled and may be partly smoke-blackened. The service end has an A-frame truss with mortice, tenoned and pegged collar. The service end fireplace, which includes a brick oven, is probably 19th century.