Swaddicott Farmhouse

Farmhouse. Constructed around the mid-17th century, with an 18th-century addition, and modernised in the late 20th century. The walls are rendered cob, and the roof is covered with tarred slate. The farmhouse has three very fine and massive 17th-century sandstone ashlar stacks, featuring moulded caps and dripcourses – two axial and one projecting from the right gable end. The plan is of a 4-room-and-through-passage design. To the left of the passage is a large room, possibly a kitchen, heated by a stack at the inner end, with a dairy or service room beyond. The room to the right of the passage has a stack in a similar position, although its purpose is unclear; the room beyond it was likely a parlour and has an original outshut, which contains a straight-run staircase. There is also an outshut behind the kitchen, believed to be either 17th or 18th century. A long 17th-century barn projects from the left end of the house.

The exterior has an asymmetrical 6-window front with late 20th-century PVC 1, 2, and 3-light casements. The two ground floor windows to the right retain their original chamfered wooden lintels and stone hoodmoulds with labels. A 19th or early 20th-century flat-roofed porch has a circa early 20th-century part-glazed door. The barn has a hipped roof and preserves two original slit openings with chamfered wooden surrounds – one on the end wall towards the house and one on the long outer wall towards the other end. It also retains a 17th-century chamfered wooden doorframe on its inner face. The rear elevation has two outshuts, one at the left end and one towards the right-hand end.

Inside, a 17th-century chamfered wooden doorframe provides access to the left-hand end room on each floor. The two central rooms have replaced fireplace lintels, but the original openings are present, with a massive opening in the left-hand room. Two good moulded 17th-century doorframes survive - one into the right-hand room and another from it into the rear stair projection, exhibiting ovolo and cyma moulding and unusual high relief carved stops. The fireplace in this end room has an identically moulded lintel. On the first floor is another simply chamfered doorframe, along with numerous 18th-century fielded 2-panel doors and 17th-century plank and panelled doors with moulded cover strips. A possible 17th-century balustrade to the stairs features chunky turned balusters and a similar newel post with a finial. Roof trusses are not fully accessible, but the feet of substantial straight principals are visible on the first floor – those in the rear outshuts have threaded purlins. The barn’s interior has surprisingly well-finished chamfered and stopped beams. The quality of the surviving features suggests this was a high-status house, reflected in its substantial appearance and spacious plan form.