Combe Farmhouse

Combe Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from around 1830. It is constructed of local stone rubble, with a rendered ground storey and slate hanging on the first storey. The roof is hipped and slate-covered, featuring a wooden modillion eaves cornice at the front, alongside two red brick axial stacks and a projecting stack with set-offs at the left-hand end, incorporating a rendered shaft.

The house has a rectangular, double-depth plan, with three main rooms at the front and smaller service rooms at the rear. The front features two parlours, positioned on either side of an entrance passage that leads to a stairwell at the back. A dairy is located behind the larger right-hand parlour, extending as a narrow room around its side. A further axial passage runs behind the smaller left-hand parlour and behind the kitchen at the extreme left end, offering entry at the left and connecting to a back kitchen or pantry, back stairs, and a larder, which projects in a small single-storey rear wing.

The front elevation is nearly symmetrical, with the first floor displaying a 1:3:1 arrangement of early 19th-century 12-pane sash windows. The ground floor is asymmetrical, accommodating a large early 19th-century 16-pane sash to the right of centre, a 9-pane sash to the left, two smaller 16-pane sashes with later 19th-century frames to the left end, and a small 4-pane casement at the extreme right. A glazed and panelled door, set within a wooden lattice porch, forms the main entrance, located to the right of centre. Two hipped dormers, slate-hung and featuring 19th-century 9-pane sashes, are arranged towards the right side. The rear elevation is asymmetrical, displaying four early 19th-century 12-pane sashes on the first floor, with a stairwell sash positioned at mid-floor level. 20th-century casements are present on the ground floor. A small, gable-ended, single-storey wing, housing the larder, is situated to the right of centre, covered by a grouted scantle slate roof.

The interior is remarkably complete, with moulded plaster cornices in the parlours and early 19th-century joinery including panelled doors, internal window shutters, dados, and chimneypieces; one chimneypiece is crafted from polished Devon limestone. The entrance passage features a moulded elliptical arch at the back, leading to a small open-well staircase with stick balusters, a moulded hand-rail ramped up to and wreathed over column newels, and an open string with scrolled tread ends. The first floor was not inspected.