Bommertown Farmhouse And Outbuilding Adjoining To South West

Bommertown Farmhouse and Outbuilding

A farmhouse with adjoining outbuilding, located in Molland. The house originates from around 1500 and was altered and possibly enlarged in the early to mid-17th century, with minor late 19th-century alterations. The lean-to was altered in the mid-to late 20th century. The building has been reduced at some point, possibly in the 17th century or later.

The main house is rendered over sandstone rubble and cob, with a gable-ended asbestos-slate roof. The adjoining 19th-century outbuilding is constructed of coursed stone rubble with brick dressings and has Welsh slate and corrugated iron roofs. Both buildings have rendered lateral and end stacks with weatherings and late 19th-century brick top stages.

The original plan appears to have been a late-Medieval open-hall house with a 3-room and cross- or through-passage arrangement facing south. The hall contained a cross passage (probably formerly a through passage) to the left and a service room (now the kitchen) beyond, with possibly a former inner room to the right. The entire space was formerly open to the roof with low dividing partitions. In the 17th century, a first floor was inserted, an external lateral stack was added to the rear of the hall, and the service room was probably extended to the left with an integral end stack. The possible former inner room to the right of the hall was demolished either in the 17th century or later. The eaves were raised, probably in the 17th century, and a staircase was inserted in the cross passage, though the present staircase dates to the early 19th century. A continuous lean-to outshut at the rear, probably from the 18th or 19th century, was partly raised by one storey in the mid-to late 20th century. A mid-to late 19th-century outbuilding with loft was added at right angles to the front of the kitchen, formerly partly serving as a cider house.

The house has two storeys. The front elevation is roughly symmetrical, with five windows to the first floor and two to the ground floor. The windows are early and late 20th-century 2- and 3-light wooden casements. The former cross-passage doorway is at the centre with a 20th-century boarded door and an early 20th-century lean-to oven projection to the left-hand gable end. The former cider house adjoins at right angles to the front of the kitchen, with a lean-to glazed porch and external stone steps leading up to a boarded loft door in the front gable end. A small lean-to in front of the gable end has two segmental-headed boarded doors to the side.

Inside, the former hall has chamfered cross beams with stepped runout stops. A late 19th-century fireplace with a semi-circular cast-iron grate and plain surround with bracketed mantelshelf is present. A front window has jambs continuing to ground level. The kitchen contains a blocked old fireplace and a bench on the front right-hand side wall with a matchboarded back and shaped legs. The dairy to the rear of the kitchen has old nail-studded doors and 19th-century 2-light wooden mullioned windows with boarded internal shutters. Four-panelled doors flank a small entrance hall. An early 19th-century staircase with stick balusters rises from the entrance. An opening in the rear wall and below the stairs possibly indicates a former rear door to the through passage. The first floor has old boarded doors and one 18th- or early 19th-century door with four raised and fielded panels. A dividing wall between two right-hand bedrooms was removed in the late 20th century, revealing the front blade of the right-hand cruck truss.

The roof retains remains of a late-Medieval smoke-blackened structure. Two fine side-pegged jointed cruck trusses, one at each end of the hall, have collars, pairs of trenched purlins (only the top pair appear to survive), mortice and tenoned apices, and a diagonally-set ridge piece sawn off at the left-hand end. A cross beam notched between the upper purlins over the bedroom above the hall was probably inserted in the 17th century to support the first-floor ceiling. Five 17th-century principal-rafter trusses with collars and halved apices are present, with pairs of purlins between. A late 20th-century roof covers the structure.