Charlestown Barton

Charlestown Barton is a farmhouse, largely of the late 16th century, although earlier fabric likely survives. It is constructed of painted rendered stone rubble and cob, with the rear unrendered. The left gable end has slate-hanging, and the roof is covered in asbestos slate with gable ends. There is an axial rendered stack and a tall rendered stack at the left gable end. The building has a 3-room and unusually, a lobby entry plan, with the stack heating both the hall and the lower end, which was recently used as a dairy. Staircases are located to the rear of the inner room and, unusually, to the front of the hall within an integral porch and stair turret.

The farmhouse is two storeys high, with a 4-window front. The windows are mostly 20th-century 2-light casements, except for the second window from the left, which is 3-light with 2 panes per light. A 2-light casement with 4 panes per light is located to the left of the plank front door. A 2-storey hall section features an entrance porch and stair turret with a corrugated iron roof. The hall has a 19th-century 3-light window with 8 panes per light. A semi-circular slate step leads to the porch, which has seats on either side of the 20th-century door. A 3-light window with 3 panes per light and a slate drip is located to the right. A plank door is set into a lean-to at the right gable end. There are no rear outshuts.

Inside, the lower end has two axial ceiling beams and a bressumer with wide hollow step-stopped chamfers. The hall features impressively wide hollow-chamfered bressumers with hollow step-stops and a cross ceiling beam. A carved bench end and part of a dais bench which returns around the walls of the hall window projection remain. A solid timber fireplace lintel has had its chamfer and stops removed, and the inner room has boxed-in cross ceiling beams. Late 16th-century chamfered jambs are visible to the hall/lobby doorway and at the base of the stair turret. A depressed segmental arched doorway with a chamfered surround and an old plank door leads to a chamber over the lower end.

The 20th-century roof structure sits above a substantially intact late 16th or early 17th-century roof structure over the hall and inner room. This consists of two trusses with slightly curved feet to the principals, morticed and tenoned collars, two tiers of trenched purlins, and a diagonally set ridge purlin. There is no sign of smoke-blackening. Access to the roof space over the lower end is not available. Changes in floor levels over the hall, the lobby entry plan, the stack’s possible insertion, the stair turret’s unusual position, and substantial signs of rebuilding to the rear wall of the hall strongly suggest the insertion of a floor into a former open-hall house. The lean-to at the right gable end covers a deep well.