Withycombe Farmhouse

Withycombe Farmhouse is a farmhouse with origins in the late medieval period, significantly remodelled in the late 16th century and renovated in the 20th century. The walls are whitewashed cob on stone rubble footings, with a slate roof which is gabled at the right end and half-hipped at the left end. There is a rendered axial stack to the rear and a lateral stack on the rear right.

The plan originally comprised three rooms through a passage to the main range, now reduced to two. The house began as a late medieval open hall house, likely divided from the passage by a low screen with two-storey blocks at the lower and inner ends, the lower end (right-hand) heated by the rear lateral stack. Around the late 16th century, the hall was floored over and a cob stack inserted against the through passage. Stairs are located against the rear walls of both the hall and the inner room. In the 20th century, much of the plank and muntin screen separating the narrow inner room from the hall was removed, and the front elevation of the house was refenestrated with altered embrasures.

The property is two storeys high. The irregular four-window front contains a 20th-century porch to the front door, located to the right of centre on the passage side. Various late 20th-century casements are visible, fitted with diamond-leaded panes.

Inside, the lower end room has a cross beam with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops, and a largely rebuilt fireplace. The hall features an open fireplace with a granite jamb and a chamfered lintel with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops; one jamb has been partially rebuilt. There is a bread oven in the hall. The hall's cross beam and joists appear to be 20th-century replacements. Remnants of the original passage screen survive in a cupboard under the stairs, along with a fragment between the hall and the narrow, unheated inner room. On the first floor, a timber-framed partition rising as a closed truss in the roof space divides the left-hand room from the room over the hall, with no through access between them. A chamfered doorframe is visible in the first-floor room to the right. A late medieval, smoke-blackened roof covers the hall, with the left-hand closed truss similarly sooted. One visible main truss is present; this is likely a jointed cruck truss, complete with a threaded ridge, purlins, and rafters.

The farmhouse is an evolved structure, conspicuous from the road due to its late medieval roof.