Dowland Barton

Dowland Barton is a farmhouse, probably dating from the 16th or early 17th century, and significantly altered and extended in the 19th century. It is constructed of rendered rubble and cob walls with hipped slate and asbestos slate roofing, and features a brick axial stack and two projecting rubble lateral stacks at the rear.

The original house comprised three rooms with a through-passage, the lower end located to the left. The hall and lower room were both heated by rear lateral fireplaces. The inner room initially had a fireplace in a similar position, though this may have been inserted in the 19th century. A small, unheated wing was added behind the hall, most likely in the late 17th or 18th century. In the early to mid-19th century, the house underwent a considerable remodelling at the upper end, likely involving the extension of the inner room and the addition of a wing behind it, with an outbuilding beyond.

The front elevation is asymmetrical, with a four-window arrangement dating from the early to mid-19th century, featuring 12 and 16-pane sashes. A 19th-century four-light wooden mullion window, with roundheaded lights (possibly a replica of an earlier hall window), is located to the left of centre on the ground floor. To the right of centre is a 19th-century six-panelled door with a semi-circular fanlight and pilasters supporting a slate doorhood on iron brackets. A 19th-century plank door is set within an arched opening towards the left-hand end of the house, beyond which is a lower section with late 20th-century casements. The right-hand end wall has two 19th-century hornless sashes and two 20th-century replicas. A lower, set-back wing extends to the rear, terminating in an outbuilding.

Inside, the hall features ogee moulded ceiling beams with hollow step stops. Panelling, ranging in date from the 18th and 19th centuries (with the possibility of some earlier pieces), lines the walls up to chair rail height. The lower room has heavy, roughly chamfered ceiling beams. Other joinery is predominantly 19th-century, consisting of chimneypieces, panelled doors, and shutters. The roof was reroofed in the 20th century, but the foot of what appears to be a curved principal rafter is visible on the rear wall of the first floor over the lower end.