Home House Including Barn Adjoining At South

Home House is a long thatched range in Haccombe-with-Combe, end on to the road, consisting of a house divided into two and a barn adjoining at the south end. The building has late medieval origins with substantial remodelling in the early 17th century, late 18th century, and 1950s, while the barn is probably 18th century.

The structure is built of colourwashed rendered cob on stone rubble footings, with a thatched roof that is half-hipped at the right end, hipped to the front of the front wing, and gabled at the left end of the barn. There are four chimneys: an axial stack to the right of centre, a rear left lateral stack, and a stack on the left return of the front wing, with evidence of a possible second rear lateral stack.

The plan is complex and evolved over time. Currently, it comprises a long single-depth range facing east with a deeper room at the right (north) end and a centre front wing, creating an approximate T-shape overall. Entry to the front wing leads into a passage, behind which a 20th-century stair rises, with an unheated rear room (possibly with its original stack dismantled). The left end of the house is a separate cottage that has been repartitioned but retains a large rear lateral stack.

The core of the house is a late medieval open hall house of jointed cruck construction, probably floored in the 17th century. The room to the right was likely remodelled or added in the 17th century as a high-quality parlour and re-roofed in the late 18th century (dated 1788 in the roofspace) when the front wing was added, reducing the room behind to a service room. The left end is probably at least 17th-century in origin, though more difficult to date precisely.

The building is 2 storeys, with a long asymmetrical nine-window front (including two windows to the wing). The wing and right end of the house have a higher roofline, with eaves thatch eyebrowed over the first-floor windows to the left of the wing. The front door has a timber lattice porch leading into the wing, with a separate door to the cottage to the left and two further doors at the extreme left. Most windows are 20th-century two- and three-light casements with glazing bars, except for the ground-floor window of the wing, which is a late 18th-century three-light mullioned window with casements featuring square leaded panes. A 20th-century projection extends from the left return of the wing. The barn adjoining at the left end has a large doorway on the front, two single-light windows, and a flight of stone steps to the left.

Interior features include a right-hand room with chamfered crossbeams and chamfered scroll-stopped half beams, with exposed joists that are scratch-moulded on the hearth side of the centre beam and chamfered and stopped on the other side, though considerable 20th-century replacement is evident. The open fireplace has a chamfered lintel but has been reduced in size. The room behind the front wing has chamfered half-beams, and late 18th-century doors with fielded panels serve the front and this room. The left-hand end is plain internally and has been repartitioned; a re-sited cupboard in the passage left of the wing bears a date of 1670 on its door.

Two bays of the medieval roof structure survive over the room behind the front wing. The roof structure, partly obscured by plaster, comprises a thickly-sooted face-pegged jointed cruck truss with a threaded ridge (the mortised collar has been replaced). A hip cruck at the left marks the end of the medieval open hall. Pegged roof trusses over the right end are of late 18th-century character, with a date of 1788 and initials D.F. scratched in the plaster of the roofspace. The roofspace over the left end was not inspected. The barn has a good cobbled floor with a drain and probably 18th- or early 19th-century roof trusses that underwent repair in the 1980s.

The rear elevation includes a two-storey 20th-century addition to the rear right, a projecting rear left stack with bread oven projection, and a second projection, possibly a former bread oven relating to an earlier stack.