Acland Barton And Chapel

Acland Barton and Chapel

A barton and chapel now serving as a store-shed and workshop, dating from the 15th century with both structures substantially remodelled in 1591. The house was further altered and extended in the late 19th century.

The house is constructed of roughly coursed stone rubble with a slate roof, hipped at the left end and with a gable end to the right. A tall brick stack with oversailing courses stands at the left end, while a rubble stack with brick heightening in offsets occupies the right gable end. The chapel is built of painted cob and stone with stone dressings, featuring a lateral rubble stack to the rear with a brick shaft, and a slate roof with gable ends. Both buildings are of two storeys.

The original 15th-century house contains a large hall to the right of a through-passage. This hall was probably formerly open to the roof but must have been heated by the stack, as there is no smoke-blackening visible on the late 15th-century roof structure. In 1591 the wing was extended, likely introducing the through-passage and first floor, with a service end added at the lower end, now partly converted to a parlour. Possibly in the 17th century, a large right-angled two-storey extension was added to the rear right end, formerly with a hipped end where it joins the main range. In the late 19th century a single-storey right-angled kitchen extension was added to the rear left side, completing a three-sided rear courtyard plan with a corrugated roof to an outshut across the length of the courtyard. The right-hand extension has a tall rendered stack to its inner face and a brick stack at the gable end of the 19th-century addition.

The house presents a three-window range, with a three-light casement to the left and two gabled half dormers to the right side with timber lintels. Three three-light casements occupy the ground floor with timber lintels, chamfered to the two outer openings. Most fenestration is of 20th-century date, except in the 19th-century extensions.

The massive through-passage doorway features a tiled lean-to roof supported on heavy oak pillars with chamfered jambs reducing to a hollow-chamfered surround. The centre of the head of the lintel is carved with the date 1591. The inner doorway has a four-centred arch with a cyma reversa and hollow-moulded surround. The door is a massive four-plank example with studded nail heads, an old knocker and latch, and horizontal planking to its inner face.

The chapel sits at right angles to and adjoins the front left end of the house. Its two storeys contain single rooms of unequal size to each side of a lobby entrance. The chapel has a two-window range of timber mullion windows of three four-centred arched lights with moulded surrounds. The two outer lights to each window are infilled, with the centre lights retaining stanchions and saddle bars. Two ground-floor stone mullion windows have three four-centred arched lights each; the left side has had its stone hoodmould replaced with a moulded timber lintel, and both sides feature label stops with fleur-de-lis and foliated designs. Stanchions and saddle bars occupy each of the three lights. A stone doorway with a depressed ogee arch and roll and hollow-chamfered surround flanks these windows. The bases of the jambs are hollowed outwards to admit cider barrels. To the rear upper storey is a timber mullion window with moulded surround of two four-centred arched lights with stanchions and saddle bars.

The interior of the house contains three shoulder-headed chamfered door surrounds to the left of the through-passage, two forming a pair towards the front end and a single doorway towards the rear set close to an impressive segmental-arched rear through-passage doorway with double-chamfered surround. A panelled screen to the hall side of the through-passage comprises four sections, each section two panels wide and three panels high, with two sections on each side of an inserted doorcase possibly casing in an earlier door surround. The hall has a single scroll-stopped beam. A four-panelled door occupies the rear right end. A fine staircase features a moulded handrail, thick turned balusters, and square newels with ball finials. Three early door surrounds appear at the head of the stairs; that to the left is partially cased in, one is straight-headed without chamfers, and another has run-out stops, an overlight, and a reset ten-panelled door with the upper two panels truncated.

The roof structure over the hall and through-passage is of considerable importance, with all details intact. Five principal trusses rest on short raised jointed cruck feet supported on a continuous moulded wall plate. The hollow-chamfers-flanking-axial-roll-and-fillet moulding runs from the base to the tip of each cruck foot, continuing around the soffit of the archbracing supporting collars morticed into the soffits of the principals. Two tiers of threaded purlins occupy the upper level, with four straight windbraces meeting and lapjointed at the centre between each truss. The soffits of the windbraces and purlins are chamfered with run-out stops. The single truss over the lower end features heavy principals, threaded purlins, and side-pegged collars.

The interior of the chapel contains 19th-century doorcases to each side of the lobby entry, with an old staircase backing onto the lobby. The ground-floor room to the right side has brick steps at the right gable end to a plank door, and an infilled fireplace on the rear wall with a heavy timber lintel and stone jambs. The room to the left has a panelled surround to a window seat. The upper storey is divided into three rooms with a landing, two rooms to the right side. An almost continuous uncelled waggon roof features every fourth rib moulded with carved bosses at the intersections of a single tier of side and ridge purlin, running almost the length of the building except at the right gable end, where two heavy trusses with straight principals and two tiers of threaded purlins stand, the innermost truss being closed.

The rooms to each side of the landing have late 16th and early 17th-century plasterwork. The room towards the right gable end displays moulded cornices and a frieze of interlocking 'S' and foliated scrolls with a central heraldic device within a scrolled surround and roundels above and below, flanked by foliated swags. The room towards the left gable end has a plainer plaster cornice on its inner wall only, with a similar heraldic device above flanked by larger foliated devices. All four doorways with timber surrounds to the upper storey are of late 16th or early 17th-century date. The doorway to the inner room towards the right gable end has a slightly cranked head and chamfered surround, reached by a short corridor with a slightly shouldered and cranked head to its end doorway. A straight-headed door at the head of the stairs leads to the principal room, and a cranked head and chamfered surround mark the doorway to the room at the left end, which also retains an original ledged two-plank door.