Kerswell Farmhouse

Kerswell Farmhouse is a 17th-century farmhouse, recorded with a datestone of 1673 (the stone is no longer present), which has been extended in the late 19th century and again in 2004. The house is constructed of colour-washed render over stone and cob, with slate roofs.

The main farmhouse has a rectangular plan aligned north-south. The front elevation, facing east, is five bays. The left-hand lower end has a single bay with a three-light, nine-pane window on both the first and ground floors. To the right is a four-bay high end, including a 20th-century pitched-roof porch entrance with a timber-and-glazed door and a modern ‘1673’ date plaque, two three-light and a nine-pane casement windows. The first floor has two three-light casement windows in the centre, flanked by two-light casements on either side; all windows have timber lintels and stone cills. A rendered ridge stack is positioned off-centre on the roof above the high end. The north gable end includes a side entrance, further casement windows, and a single-storey cat-slide addition. The rear elevation features a two-storey, late 19th-century outshut that projects from the centre of the original range, and an early 21st-century single-storey, pitched-roof wing that extends at a right angle. To the south of the rear elevation is the lower end of the 17th-century range with a single-storey cat-slide addition, casement windows with stone cills, and an entrance on the west face. The south gable end includes casement windows and a 17th-century stone end stack with a drip course.

The interior of the original 17th-century range comprises three rooms arranged around an off-centre through passage. Some doorways have been blocked, and access to the north-end room is now via a later rear corridor. The south-end room features a large open fireplace with a chamfer-and-stopped timber bressumer and a brick-lined bread oven. The central room has an ovolo-moulded bressumer above an open fireplace. Both the south and central rooms contain exposed ceiling beams, including two ovolo-moulded, chamfered-and-stopped cross-axial beams in the middle room. Four- and six-panelled doors are found throughout the house, representing various phases of construction. A dog-leg staircase, with a late 19th-century banister, rises from the central passage. A further stone fireplace with timber bressumer is located on the first floor. The original roof features 17th-century wooden-pegged collar-roof trusses, now within a later 19th- and 20th-century roof structure. The 21st-century wing to the rear contains a modern kitchen which is not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest.