West Combe Farm House

Farmhouse dated 1827, with initials N.B. (said to be Nicholas Browse) inscribed on the building. Constructed from local slate rubble with a rendered left-hand (west) wall. The roof is of hipped scantle slate with red clay ridge tiles.

The front elevation features a large central lateral stack with chamfered corners and battlements corbelled out at the top of the shaft. A second stack, with a rendered shaft, stands on the left-hand side of the house.

The plan represents an interesting early 19th-century derivative of the traditional hall and passage arrangement but with a symmetrical facade. Facing south, the house has a central 'hall' with a front lateral stack, flanked by the 'lower' service end on the left and 'higher' end on the right. The left-hand service end contains a scullery and back staircase at the rear, and a kitchen which projects in a canted bay. Behind the parlour is a small room now used as a dairy; to the left of this is the stairhall with a passage to a doorway at the front between the parlour and central hall. A principal entrance is positioned to the right of centre, balanced by a doorway to the left of centre that opens directly into the 'hall'. At the rear, doorways lead to the scullery and small cellars under the stairs. The ground level of the farmyard at the back is lower than the walled garden at the front.

The exterior is two storeys with a symmetrical 1:2:1 window arrangement on the south front, though the left-hand doorway is blocked. To the left and right, the end bays project with canted corners. All windows are original 16-pane sashes in cambered arch openings with slate cills, except for the first-floor right-hand window which has a 20th-century 4-pane sash in the original opening. The doorway to the right of centre has a cambered stone arch and an original cambered-head 6-panel door with fielded and flush panels. The doorway to the left of centre is now a window with a 2-light casement with glazing bars. The date 1827 is recessed into the masonry on the inner returns of the projecting end bays, with similarly inscribed initials N.B. at the centre under the large lateral stack. The left-hand (west) return is blind except for windows on each floor at the rear. The right-hand (east) return has two 19th-century round-headed casements on the first floor with intersecting glazing bars.

The rear (north) elevation is asymmetrical with some windows blocked. A large 19th-century 18-pane stair sash stands to the left of centre, with a smaller 16-pane sash to its right. Another stair window to the right has been blocked and replaced with a small early 19th-century fixed-light window with leaded panes. On the ground floor is a 19th-century 3-light casement to the right of centre, a 2-light window to the right with perforated zinc ventilator, and an early 19th-century flush panel door to the right. Two other doorways, to the left and right of centre, have been blocked; they originally gave access to cellars under the stairs. The cellar to the right has a small square window with a lattice grille.

The interior is complete and unaltered with the plan intact. The entrance hall at the right-hand (east) end contains an open-well staircase at the rear with a scrolled open string, stick balusters and a moulded mahogany handrail ramped up to column newels. The entrance hall retains its original early 19th-century 6-panel doors in reeded doorframes. The front parlour to the left has a large alcove with a mounded architrave and panelled cupboard doors and window shutters, though its chimneypiece is 20th-century. The small rear room to the right, now the dairy, retains a fireplace with large shelves on the walls on shaped brackets, hooks on the ceiling, an early 19th-century corner cupboard and a stone-flagged floor. The 'hall' has a 20th-century chimneypiece. The front left-hand room (kitchen) has a partly blocked fireplace with a large chamfered timber lintel and shaped wooden coat-hooks below a row of small cupboards. The scullery behind also has wooden coat-hooks. The small dog-leg back staircase has stick balusters and a row of small cupboards to the side with original drop handles. The first floor has a complete set of 6-panel doors; the two right-hand rooms have 19th-century chimneypieces, the one at the back being reeded.