West Barton Farmhouse

This is an early 17th-century farmhouse, with alterations from the 18th century and remodelling in the 19th century. It is constructed of rendered stone and cob, with a slate roof and gable-end brick stacks, one at the right end featuring two tapered clay pots. A tall lateral front hall stack has offsets, a drip, a tapered cap and a brick shaft. Another brick stack sits on the gable end of the rear wing. The original layout was a three-room cross-passage plan, with a dairy wing added to the rear of the hall, forming an overall T-shaped plan. The house is two storeys high and has a five-window front, with 19th and 20th-century windows. A small four-paned single light window is on the left-hand side, above a horned sash with margin glazing bars to the left of a 2-over-4-paned, horned sash window above a 20th-century stairhall window. A tall Gothic pointed-arched window was added in the early 20th century to the doorway. A porch has a 12-paned, horned sash window set over a gabled slate roof, and a 20th-century plank door with cover strips. A 16-paned, horned sash window is located at the right end, above a 20th-century canted bay window.

Inside, some 18th and 19th-century joinery remains, including cupboards in the hall and a four-panelled door between the cross-passage and hall. A 17th-century chamfered lintel is visible in one fireplace, with a 19th-century mantel shelf. A staircase with a moulded and wreathed handrail, ramped up to slender newels with stick balusters, is located in the cross-passage. The dairy fittings are intact. A 17th-century chamfered door surround remains in the chamber above the hall, featuring scroll-stopped durns. Original plank doors are found in most of the bedrooms. The roof structure over the hall is largely original 17th-century carpentry, featuring four trusses with short curved feet, two tiers of threaded purlins and a ridge purlin. Morticed and tenoned collars have chamfers to each arris to the soffits of the principals. Solid wall partitions rise to the apex of the roof between the hall/inner room and the cross passage/lower end. The roof structures over each end are 20th-century replacements. The lower end and cross-passage have been altered in the 18th and 20th centuries, and the inner room end was rebuilt and extended in the 19th century to form a kitchen and servants’ wing.