Kerswell Springs

Kerswell Springs is a house likely dating from the 18th century, with later additions from the early 19th century and the 1930s. The construction is whitewashed plastered stone with a thatched roof, hipped at the left end and gabled at the right. There are two axial stacks, with the stack at the right end being particularly notable.

The house has a main range, four rooms wide, with a single-story front wing added in the 1930s at a right angle to the main range. Originally, the house appears to have been a smaller, two-room dwelling with a central entrance leading to a stair lobby and rooms on either side, heated by end stacks. In the early 19th century, a single room was added to the left end, also heated from an end stack. A single-room addition at the right end, possibly unheated, may be later, perhaps when the house was divided into cottages. The 1930s also saw the house refenestrated, with new windows and the addition of the front wing.

The front facade is asymmetrical, with five windows. The central front door is sheltered by a thatched porch canopy and has a half-glazed door. A single-story rectangular bay with a thatched roof and a four-pane sash window is situated to the left of the front door. A late 20th-century window is on the left ground floor, while a left-hand first-floor window is an 18th or 19th-century two-light casement with eight panes per light. The remainder of the windows are metal framed, dating from the 1930s and featuring two-light, transomed casements. A blocked doorway with a timber lintel exists to the left of the bay window, and the right-hand wing has an end stack and two 20th-century windows. The rear elevation, which faces the road, has various small, 20th-century windows, some fitted with shutters.

Inside, the fireplaces have been rebuilt around the two axial stacks. The right-hand fireplace contains a bread oven and a lintel with scroll stops, which is likely re-sited. This room also features a rough-hewn crossbeam. The heated room to the left of the centre has a chamfered crossbeam. The roof space has not been thoroughly inspected, but pegged collar rafter trusses at the extreme left-hand end appear to date from the early 19th century. Straight principals visible upstairs in the centre of the house suggest those trusses might be 18th century.

This is a conspicuously-sited thatched house representative of the region.