Charlestown Barton

BRAYFORD SS 63 SE 3/12 - Charlestown Barton

GV II

Barton farmhouse. Substantially late C16, but very likely earlier fabric survives. Painted rendered stone rubble and cob, unrendered to rear. Slate-hanging to left gable end. Asbestos slate roof with gable ends. Axial rendered stack and tall rendered stack at left gable end. 3-room and unusually, lobby entry plan, the stack heating the hall and also the lower end which until recently, however, was used as a dairy. Staircases to rear of inner room and, unusually, to front of hall in integral porch and stair turret. 2 storeys. 4-window range. C20 2-light casements, except second from left which is 3 lights, 2 panes per light. Ground floor has 2-light casement, 4 panes per light to left of plank door. 2-storey hall section incorporating entrance porch and stair turret built out with corrugated iron roof. C19 3-light hall window, 8 panes per light. Semi-circular slate step to porch with seats to each side of C20 door. 3- light window to right, 3 panes per light with slate drip. Plank door to lean-to at right gable end. No rear outshuts. Interior: 2 axial ceiling beams and bressumer to lower end with wide hollow step- stopped chamfers. The lean-to at the right end covers a deep well. Hall has impressively wide hollow-chamfered bressumers with hollow step-stops and cross ceiling beam. Carved bench end and part of dais bench which returns around the walls of the hall window projection. Solid timber fireplace lintel but chamfer and stops cut away. Boxed-in cross ceiling beams to inner room. Late C16 chamfered jambs to hall/lobby doorway and to base of stair turret. Depressed segmental arched doorway with chamfered surround and old plank door to chamber over lower end. C20 roof structure superimposed over late C16 or early C17 substantially intact roof structure over hall and inner room consisting of two trusses with slightly curved feet to the principals, morticed and tenoned collar, 2 tiers of trenched purlins and diagonally set ridge purlin. There is no sign of smoke-blackening and no access to roof space over lower end, but the change in floor levels over the hall, the lobby entry plan suggesting the stack may be inserted, the unusual position of the stair turret and substantial signs of rebuilding to the rear wall of the hall strongly implies the insertion of a floor to a former open-hall house.

Listing NGR: SS6880032967