Longbarn

Longbarn is a house dating from around the 18th century, with 20th-century renovations and a rear addition. The original section is colourwashed rendered cob on stone rubble footings, with a thatched roof, gabled at the ends. The thatch on the ridge has been replaced with wooden shingles to the rear. Projecting end stacks have brick shafts, with extensions to the rear to accommodate left and right stair turrets. A rear addition of narrow service rooms is built of colourwashed rendered brick and has a wooden shingle lean-to roof.

Originally, the house seems to have comprised a single-depth main range, two rooms wide, with heated rooms on either side of a passage. The right-hand fireplace retains the remains of a bread oven and may have originally been the kitchen, with a parlour to the left. The presence of what were once newel stairs at either end of the house suggests the possibility of two separate occupations at an early date. The rear service addition, likely dating to the 1930s, may have replaced earlier outshuts, specifically a “pantry” and “back place” mentioned in an auction catalogue from 1920. The original newel stairs adjacent to each stack have been replaced by a central stair in the rear addition.

The house is two storeys and an attic. The front elevation is attractively symmetrical, with three bays. There are three small, 18th-century, 2-light casement windows with square leaded panes in the attic. The ground floor and first-floor windows are 3-light casements with square leaded panes and shutters, which may be replacements but with original window embrasures. The central gabled porch was probably rebuilt in the 20th century. Internally, the ground floor rooms and passage feature exposed joists of slender scantling. Both fireplaces have been largely rebuilt, but the right-hand fireplace has a chamfered lintel with run-out stops that may be original. Recesses with rounded walls alongside the stacks indicate former stair turrets. The principal rafters of the roof, which could not be inspected in 1986, are straight with 20th-century collars and tie beams.

A 1920 auction catalogue indicates the house was formerly divided into two cottages. The cottage on the left had a “Living Room, back place, 2 bedrooms on the first floor and 1 on the second floor,” while the cottage on the right had a “Living Room with range, pantry, Bedroom on first floor and 2 Bedrooms on the second floor”. The exterior is considered particularly charming. The possibility that the building was originally designed for two occupations and subsequently used as "2... cottages" in the 1920s is interesting. The building has group value with the nearby church.