Abbot'S Hill Farmhouse

Abbot's Hill Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from the 17th century, with substantial remodelling and enlargement in the late 18th or early 19th century, and further alterations in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. The walls are rendered, likely over a cob and stone construction. It has gable-ended asbestos-slate roofs, with a hipped roof over bays, and a slate roof over a lean-to addition covered in 20th-century bitumen. Chimneys are rendered with 19th-century brick tops.

The original layout was likely a 17th-century three-room plan with a through passage facing east, taking advantage of the sloping ground to the right. It originally comprised a former hall with a rear lateral stack, a former passage and service rooms to the right with an external end stack, and a former inner room to the left with an external end stack. A significant remodelling in the late 18th or early 19th century added full-height canted bays to the hall and the service end, a dairy outshut to the right-hand end, and a large kitchen wing to the rear of the right-hand end. The interior was also remodelled during this period.

The farmhouse is two storeys high with a one-storey outshut. The two full-height canted bays, added around 1800, feature triple sash windows with 12 panes to the ground floor and 16 panes to the first floor, wooden cills, and metal beading at the angles. A first-floor sash window, likely a 20th-century replacement, with horns, is positioned between the bays, with a lower leaf of 4 x 2 panes and an upper leaf of 4 x 1 panes. A first-floor sash window, also with a lower leaf of 4 x 2 panes and an upper leaf of 4 x 1 panes, is to the left of the left-hand bay. A recessed doorway between the bays has a 20th-century half-glazed door with coloured leaded glass, and a half-glazed door with beaded panels and small panes is to the left. A 20th-century glazed porch fronts the entrance. End stacks have chamfered offsets. A first-floor sash window, dating from the early 19th century and with sixteen panes, is to the right of the right-hand end stack. The former dairy at the right-hand gable has a 19th-century boarded door to the front and paired wooden casements to the side. The rear wing’s right-hand side has two 20th-century wooden casements on the first floor and two boxed 12-pane glazing bar sashes (likely from the early 20th century) on the ground floor. A former doorway at the rear of the left-hand end of the central room, now a window, has a chamfered wooden frame with mason’s mitred joints and a four-part rectangular overlight.

The interior, inspected in December 1987, features 18th or 19th-century doors with six raised and fielded panels. A 17th-century chamfered beam is located between the former hall and inner room, with ogee stops on the right-hand (hall) side only. Local tradition suggests the house was formerly part of a manor belonging to the Abbots of Hartland.