Southcott Barton

Southcott Barton, Westleigh

A barton (farmhouse) dating to around 1600, now in residential use. The building is constructed of rendered stone rubble and cob with slate roofs displaying gable ends. It features an axial stone rubble stack with tapered cap, a rear lateral hall stack with offsets and tapered cap, and a stack at the right gable end of the main range with tapered cap, offsets and a projecting bread oven.

The building is basically E-shaped in plan. The left-hand parlour wing extends to the rear and houses the principal staircase. The centre range contains a hall to the left of a through-passage with a 2-storey porch, with the service end to the right. The front wing was formerly used as an apple loft above a dairy, which is now a kitchen with bedrooms above.

The structure rises to 2 storeys with a garret to the parlour wing. A 6-window range extends across the wings and porch. The left-hand wing gable end has a 20-paned sash on each floor. The inner face displays a 20-paned sash over a canted bay with French windows and margin glazing bars, surmounted by a gabled dovecote. The main range has two 20-paned sashes over two tripartite sashes with 12 panes to the centre and 8-paned sidelight sashes to the left of the porch, with a 2-light casement of 6 panes per light on each floor to the right. The porch has a 20-paned sash over a straight-headed doorway with dressed stone jambs. Small windows flank each side of the porch with deep splayed reveals, containing stained glass inserted in the 20th century by the Fulford family depicting St Ambrose to the left (over initials AFC) and two badges to the right (over the date 1927–1971). An impressively massive 17th-century inner porch doorway has a straight head with a double ovolo moulded surround and ornate stops at the base of the jambs consisting of triple flutes above a bar over a bulbous motif terminating in a scroll. The massive original framed and ledged door features moulded cover strips forming 20 panels, an old lock and latches. The gable end of the service wing to the right has 12-paned sashes on each floor.

Three small leantos adjoin the rear, and a single-storey gable-ended dairy extension encloses the hall stack. The leanto to the rear of the through-passage has an ovolo-with-hollow moulded surround to a reset straight-headed doorway with 4 flutes above a bar and keel-stopped stops. Original plank doors with cover strips form 12 panels, with the upper 3 panels glazed.

The interior preserves very fine 17th-century features throughout the majority of rooms. An impressive plank and muntin screen between the hall and through-passage is 10 planks wide with ovolo-moulded muntins featuring bulbous stops at the base on each side. Each plank is carved with lozenge and scallop patterns at the top. A doorway has been reset from the centre towards the left side of the screen. An ovolo-moulded door surround with triangular prism stops frames the reset doorway to the returned wall of the leanto added to the rest of the through-passage. A reused lintel to the hall fireplace has dressed stone jambs. A fragment of plasterwork frieze decorated with running scrolled stems with fruit and foliage survives on the front wall of the hall. An ovolo-moulded door surround with scratched bar, bulb and scroll stops opens to the front parlour wing, which has a fireplace with dressed stone jambs, slates set on end to each side of the hearth, and an ovolo-moulded lintel with run-out stops. A thin moulded plasterwork cornice decorates the inner room (now divided into bedrooms). A 17th-century dog-leg staircase retains original treads, moulded handrail, turned balusters and newels with acorn finials. A geometrical plasterwork ceiling to the stair hall features 4 heart-shapes around a central pendant, with inner lozenges tipped with angle sprays at the intersections at the head of each heart-shape.

All doorways to the upstairs rooms retain original doors with cover strips and door surrounds, each differently moulded. The small chamber to the right at the head of the stairs has a bar-ogee-scroll stop identical to the front doorway of Southcott House. This chamber has a plaster ceiling with 3 small foliated roundels (the 4th not surviving) around a central slightly larger roundel. A 17th-century staircase to the garret has splat balusters and a moulded handrail.

The two principal chambers over the hall both have spectacular ornamental coved plasterwork ceilings enriched with double-ribbed geometrical designs around central pendants. The smaller chamber has 2 large sprays at each end, a frieze, and a fireplace overmantel with a strapwork cartouche and anthropomorphic sun-head to the centre. The larger chamber has geometrical designs at each end with heads above and below and inside each lozenge to either side. Its fireplace overmantel displays a strapwork cartouche and a central roundel depicting a mythical two-headed bird and lion's head. An ovolo-moulded lintel with scratched star shape and scroll stops sits above. A small room over the porch also has a coved plasterwork ceiling decorated with a central roundel encircled by 3 paterae (the 4th not surviving). Part of the plasterwork frieze to one of the chambers over the lower end features running scrolled foliage and fruit designs. An ovolo-moulded fireplace lintel with scroll stops adorns the other chamber. The lower-end kitchen fireplace has a chamfered lintel with run-out stops and a niche to the right, probably originally a smoking chamber. A 17th-century ledged door with cover strips opens to the rear outshut.

No access exists to the roofspace over the principal chambers, but 2 trusses over the lower end and 3 over the rear parlour wing respectively display typical 17th-century lap-jointed collars, threaded purlins and ridge purlin.

Despite the loss of plasterwork ceilings to the hall and parlour wing, this is an excellently preserved example of an early 17th-century barton with an outstanding array of period detail surviving.