Luscombe Farmhouse

RATTERY - SX 76 SW

6/39 Luscombe Farmhouse - GV II*

Farmhouse, formerly a manor house. C16 with circa late C16 and early C17 additions and enlarged and partly remodelled in late C17 and C18. Stone rubble. Slate hipped and gabled roofs. Originally a through passage plan of which the passage and lower end survive with a circa late C16 or early C17 kitchen wing attached to rear (south east) of lower end, and a circa early C17 porch built at front of the through passage and a C17 parlour wing added to front (north west) of the higher end. The hall and higher end entirely rebuilt and enlarged in late C17 and remodelled in C18, turning the back of the house into a symmetrical front with the remodelled C17 kitchen wing projecting to the right to form an L-shaped plan. Two storeys. C18 north front, five bays. Sash windows with glazing bars and ashlar voussoirs to flat arches. Band at first floor level. Central fielded panel door with rectangular fanlight and hood on shaped brackets with later timber supporting posts. Oval slate sundial on front wall. Kitchen, projecting wing to right with steeply pitched hipped slate roof and C19 two and three-light casements with glazing bars. Large projecting lateral stack on opposite east side of kitchen wing. North side, original front, circa C17 gabled wing to right with blocked openings and C18 one and two-light sashes inserted. To left of wing early C17 two storeyed gabled porch to through passage with finely cut chamfered round arch and three-light chamfered timber mullion window above with leaded panes and a chamfered timber lintel. The joists inside the porch are moulded with run-out stops. Interior: drawing room in the position of the enlarged hall has late C17 moulded plaster ceiling and fielded ovolo panelling, and small adjoining room to north with earlier C17 moulded panelling and cornice. The earlier higher end has all its C18 joinery intact including fielded panel doors and shutters, dog-leg staircase with moulded balusters and handrail, square newels and closed string. Three jointed cruck trusses survive of the old C16 roof at the lower end with morticed apices, morticed cranked collars, side pegged, two tiers of threaded purlins and diagonal threaded ridge piece. Only one rafter remains. Similar truss over lower side of passage has crown post. Luscombe was a Domesday Manor. It is a remarkably unspoilt house which has been virtually unaltered since the C18.

Listing NGR: SX7482963731