Curzeland Farmhouse

Curzeland Farmhouse is a two-storey farmhouse of late 15th or early 16th-century origin, heavily remodelled in the 17th century, with 19th and 20th-century alterations. The building is constructed of rendered stone rubble and cob, with the left end wall left unrendered. It has an asbestos slate roof, half-hipped at the right end and hipped to the left. A lateral rear stack has been rebuilt in brick in the 20th century, while a stone rubble stack with tapered cap and slated bread oven projection survives at the left end.

The house follows a three-room plan with cross-passage, though the usual alignment was reversed during 17th-century remodelling. The hall and inner room are positioned to the right of, and at a lower level than, the cross-passage which contains the staircase. This layout appears to result from a major reorganisation of an earlier open hall house of some stature. Surviving from the original medieval structure are an imposing, heavily smoke-blackened arch, a wind-braced roof of two bays, and part of a richly moulded screen. The concentration of these early features at the upper (left) end suggests the house-plan was reversed during the 17th century, with the lower end partitioned to form a new hall, heated by the rear lateral stack, and an unheated inner room at the right end. The original hall appears to have been positioned to the left of the passage; the surviving screen fragment, if in situ, would have formed a low partition between hall and passage. The ceiling of the left end room is considerably higher than those of the lower rooms, and a high scroll-stopped bressumer may indicate an early 17th-century phase when the original hall was floored over. The left end wall is entirely of stone rubble, and external evidence suggests the house originally extended further left, with this section presumably demolished when the hall was repositioned.

The front elevation is a three-window range with late 19th or early 20th-century fenestration: from the left end, a two-light casement with two panes per light, a two-light casement with six panes per light, and a three-light casement with two panes per light. The ground floor has a two-light casement with three panes per light to the left and a three-light casement with six panes per light to the right of a plank door with timber canopy supported on shaped brackets. Dairy and service outshuts extend to the rear.

Internally, the surviving fragment of the 15th-century screen consists of an extremely richly moulded headrail approximately two metres in length, with moulding carried down the muntins at each end. The rear end is set against the rear wall, and the front end is bedded in the axial partition blocking the cross-passage. Three mortices survive for three similar muntins between the two end ones, which are grooved for planks now lost. Set in front of this screen on its left (upper) side is a partition rising to the high scroll-stopped bressumer, which though boarded over in the 20th century, may conceal a 17th-century plank partition. The hall to the right of the passage has a plain chamfered cross ceiling beam and fireplace lintel, with an unchamfered half bressumer supporting the joists in the right end room. Set in the front wall of the hall is a late 17th-century fielded panelled cupboard door with original hinges and, unusually, a separate drawer of similar date immediately below it. The roof structure over the hall and inner room is 19th-century with pegged trusses, but over the left end room and cross-passage are two fine 15th-century arch-braced raised cruck trusses of impressively wide span, with cranked collars and three tiers of threaded purlins. The two lower tiers formerly had windbraces, of which only two survive on the rear side of the lower tier. The diagonally set ridge is also threaded. The truss at the upper end is thoroughly smoke-blackened, but the lower face of the truss over the passage is relatively clean; the purlins at both ends have been sawn off, with a hip introduced at the upper end, so that the original extent of the medieval open hall house remains uncertain.

Curzeland Farmhouse was clearly a dwelling of considerable importance in the late medieval period. The roof structure is a scaled-up version of, but otherwise bears close similarities to, that at East Aylescott Farmhouse, Burrington.