Lower Bearscombe Farmhouse

Lower Bearscombe Farmhouse, Diptford

This farmhouse dates probably to the 16th century or earlier, though it has been substantially altered and extended over time. The building is constructed of slate rubble with a roughcast front and slate hanging on the right-hand south gable end. Large rendered stone rubble chimney stacks stand prominently; the gable end stack on the right was originally an axial stack, while the axial stack on the left was originally a gable end stack. Both have been heightened with brick shafts.

The original plan was a three-room structure with a through passage, but significant portions have been demolished and rebuilt. The lower end to the left, including the cross or through passage, has been completely removed. The hall, which was probably originally open to the roof, retains a stack at its lower end that backed onto the former passage. The relatively large former inner room contains a stack at the higher end. During the 17th century, the lower right end including the passage was demolished and a one-room addition built at the higher right end to serve as a kitchen, which reused the former inner room stack by inserting a new fireplace and oven. The former inner room, now the central room, was divided by an axial partition (since removed) into a small unheated room at the back and an axial passage at the front. This passage links the kitchen at the left end with the former hall at the right end, and a doorway was inserted at the front where a two-storey porch forms the new entrance. Stone newel stairs in a projecting turret at the front of the lower end of the hall may date from the 17th century remodelling.

The exterior shows an asymmetrical three-window range with a rectangular stair turret at the right end of the front elevation. A gabled two-storey porch projects from the left of centre, its first floor walls slightly corbelled out. This porch features a small first floor two-light casement with a slate hoodmould, a wide square-headed doorway with wooden benches inside, and a blocked slit window on the right hand side, along with a 20th-century glazed plank inner door. The ground floor contains a 19th-century two-light casement to the hall on the right and a 19th-century three-light casement to the left, both with glazing bars and slate hoodmoulds. Above the left-hand window is a 20th-century gabled hall dormer. All windows have slate sills. The rear elevation features various 19th and 20th-century 12 and three-light casements in original small openings, a blocked doorway to the left into the former hall, and a doorway to the right now within a later outbuilding. A small single-storey outshut with a slit window stands at the lower left of the rear.

Internally, stone newel stairs occupy a turret at the front lower end of the hall. The fireplace at the lower end of the hall has dressed slate jambs but the lintel has been removed. The hall ceiling is plastered. A short section of plank and muntin screen survives between the hall and former inner room, exposed on the inner room side only, where the muntins are roughly chamfered. The central room (former inner room) features thin roughly chamfered joists with straight-cut stops. The fireplace at the higher end of the former inner room is blocked but retains its exposed chamfered timber lintel. The left-hand room in the 17th-century addition contains a roughly chamfered cross-beam and half-beam with run-out stops. The fireplace in this room reuses the former inner room stack and has a blocked-over brick; the lintel has been replaced with a brick arch, probably in the 19th century. An early 19th-century cupboard with panelled doors also occupies this room. A probable 17th-century plank door on the first floor separates the hall and inner room chambers.

The roof space is very restricted in access. The roof structure appears to have been mostly replaced in the 20th century with soft wood trusses, though a rafter from the old roof remains and shows signs of smoke-blackening. The roof structure over the two-storey porch, visible from the chamber above, retains its original trusses with principals of straight feet and threaded or deeply trenched purlins.