Lower Washbourne Barton

Lower Washbourne Barton is a house, formerly a farmhouse, dating from the early 17th century or earlier, remodelled in the late 17th and mid-18th centuries, and extended around 1830. It is constructed of rendered stone rubble with a grouted scantle slate roof featuring gable ends and early hand-made crested ridge tiles. The chimneys include axial and gable end stacks with rendered shafts; one at the left end has pots made from vertically set slates, one axial stack has a 19th-century brick shaft, and the lateral stacks at the rear of the rear wing have tall stone rubble shafts.

The building comprises a long two-storey range of four-room plan with a two-storey wing at the rear right, and a two-room plan range attached to the end of the wing running parallel with the left end of the main range. The original house likely consisted of the three left-hand rooms of the main range, forming a three-room plan with cross or through passage. The lower left end room was heated from a gable end stack, the hall from an axial stack at its lower left end, and the inner room to the right has a gable end stack. The wing at the rear of the hall, with a heated chamber above and unheated ground floor room, may have been part of the original plan or a late 17th-century addition marking a reorientation of the house, when the lower left end room became the parlour. Around the mid-18th century, the house was remodelled again: the old hall became a grand entrance hall with a fine open-well staircase inserted at its right end. On the landing is a fine 18th-century doorway into the chamber over the former inner room. The large right-hand room is now an outbuilding, though the present owner reports that the first floor was formerly a ballroom. Whatever its original function, it was probably added in the early 19th century at the same time as the parallel two-storey service range was built attached to the rear wing behind the left-hand end of the main range. The back range contains the kitchen, dairy, and back stairs to servants' rooms. The date 1819 or 1831 on the weathervane of the cupola over the main range probably refers to the refenestration of the façade, the addition of the right-hand outbuilding/ballroom, and the rear service range. The date on the weathervane appears to be 1819, although according to the owner it is actually 1831, which would be consistent with the estimated 1830–1840 date of the stables immediately to the east.

Externally, the house presents two storeys in a long asymmetrical range of two plus three windows, with the blind front wall of the outbuilding to the right. The windows are circa early 19th-century sashes: 12 panes to the first floor and tall 15-pane sashes to the ground floor with low sills, though the central ground floor window has been replaced with a late 20th-century casement. The doorway to the right of centre has a fine 18th-century Doric doorcase with fluted pilasters, cornice and frieze with triglyphs and mantles, and a fielded panel door. Over the centre of the ridge sits a square wooden cupola with a weathervane pierced with initials reading S?D 1819?. To the right, the first floor of the outbuilding has ventilation slits, possibly in place of original windows. The ground floor has wide openings with timber lintels for vehicle access. The rear wall of the main range has circa early 18th-century sash windows to the left and some slate hanging to the right on the first floor facing the yard. Also facing the yard, the front wall of the parallel rear range has three very large 18th or early 19th-century sashes with glazing bars. The rear wall of the parallel back range is blind except for one 20th-century ground floor window and two lateral stacks with tall stone rubble shafts. The gable end of the circa late 17th-century rear wing is set back to the left of the back range and has a short stone rubble stack with a dripstone and a late 18th or early 19th-century sash with glazing bars to the first floor chamber; the outer left-hand face of the wing has two 19th-century casements on the first floor and an 18th-century sash on the ground floor. To the left, the ground level is higher and there is a first floor doorway to the outbuilding.

The interior retains many interesting high-quality features. The hall contains a very good open-well open string staircase with carved scroll tread ends, three twisted and fluted balusters per bead, a moulded handrail ramped up to fluted column newels and weathered over the curtail newel, and fielded panel dado to the stairs and hall. The hall has a moulded plaster ceiling cornice, and the stairwell has a fine modillion cornice. The hall also features round-headed niches in the back wall and a china cupboard to the side of the fireplace. The fireplace has lost its 18th-century chimneypiece, exposing a finely dressed slate earlier fireplace with a chamfered timber lintel bearing short run-out stops and a stone oven to the left. The parlour to the left of the hall has a good late 17th-century bolection moulded plaster ceiling with an oval centre and rectangular fields and an elaborate modillion cornice; a china cupboard; and a doorway with moulded cornices bearing pulvinated friezes. It also features a fine large bolection moulded marble chimneypiece with cornice that breaks forward at the centre, and a large elliptically-headed niche in the back wall. The room to the right of the hall, the former inner room, was inaccessible but is said to have a Devon limestone chimneypiece. A fine 18th-century round-headed parallel door at the top of the stairs leads into the chamber over the former inner room. The first floor retains many late 17th or 18th-century fielded two-panel doors. The rear wing chamber also has fielded panel doors and a circa late 17th-century bolection moulded chimneypiece with cornice.

The roof over the main range has been raised, probably in the 19th century, and features softwood trusses at the entrance. The roof space over the rear wing is inaccessible, but the foot of one straight principal is visible. A bell, lying in the stables to the east of the house, is dated 1602 and bears the name Henry (Somster?).