Capelcombe Farmhouse

Capelcombe Farmhouse

A Grade II* listed farmhouse at Kings Nympton, dating to the early 16th century, though earlier structural fabric may be concealed within. The building is constructed of painted rendered stone rubble and cob with a thatch roof. The roof features a gable end to the right and half-hipped ends to the left side and rear wing. Two tall stone rubble stacks provide distinctive features: a lateral stack at the front and another at the left end.

The farmhouse follows a three-room and cross-passage plan with the lower end positioned to the left and a short unheated dairy wing projecting to the rear right. While the roof structure remains largely inaccessible, an impressive cruck truss over the hall clearly indicates that this room was originally open to the roof. Solid wall partitions rise to the roof apex on the lower side of the passage and between the hall and inner room, though it remains uncertain whether the two end rooms were originally ceiled. The dairy wing appears to have been added when the hall was subsequently ceiled over.

The exterior presents two storeys with a four-window range. All fenestration dates to the 19th century and survives intact, comprising three-light casements with 8 panes per light on the upper storey. The ground floor contains two four-light casements with 8 panes per light to the right of the stack, a 20th-century porch with a gabled slate roof and a two-light casement, and to the left a nineteenth-century inner plank door now rehung as the outer doorway to the porch. A 17th-century four-light window to the rear wing features thick rectangular-section mullions, one light retaining original square leaded panes.

The interior is exceptionally well preserved, retaining high-quality joinery and carpentry throughout. The inner room displays a moulded plaster cornice on all four walls and an old window bench. A 16th-century chamfered pointed arched doorway surround separates the hall from the inner room, while a four-centred arched doorway opens into the dairy.

The dairy contains a deep chamfered axial ceiling beam and old shutters to its right-end window. The hall features a chamfered bressumer at its upper end and a deep chamfered cross ceiling beam with large hollow step stops, the front end face being slightly keeled and notched to resemble leaf decoration. A keel-stopped ogee-moulded lintel frames the fireplace, which retains a bread oven door to its right and a small single-light round-arched timber window with squint function to the left. An old oak window seat and bench at the upper end incorporates an integral wall cupboard above.

A plank and muntin screen, four planks wide with chamfered muntins on the passage side, divides the lower end of the hall. It contains two doorways: the hall-passage doorway has been converted from a four-centred arched surround to a straight-headed form, while the adjoining left doorway is blocked. The staircase has been turned in the 20th century to face the front doorway, with the old plank door rehung at its foot. The screen features a hollow chamfered head rail.

The lower end is fitted with a bressumer and cross ceiling beam with deep chamfers and hollow step stops. The lower end fireplace is unusual, with a centrally positioned hearth featuring dressed stone jambs and an impressive cambered and chamfered timber lintel that continues leftward to the front wall, forming a slightly narrower and partially blocked hearth arrangement probably serving as a smoking chamber. To the right is a deep chamber visible as an integral two-storey cob projection on the outer end wall, closely resembling corn-drying chambers found in Somerset farmhouses. A similar deep chamber exists at first-floor level, from which it can be seen that the stone rubble stack is actually detached from the end cob wall.

The roof structure remains largely inaccessible, preventing complete interpretation of the development. Purlins over the lower end and inner room are carried on partition and end walls, except at the lower end where a single raised cruck blade is supported by the stack. The hall is spanned by an impressive cruck truss, with the front foot certainly continuing to first-floor level and possibly originally a full cruck before the addition of the hall stack.

Capelcombe Farmhouse is a remarkably unspoilt example with good-quality fittings surviving throughout.