Long Furlong Farmhouse

Long Furlong Farmhouse is a house formerly used as a farmhouse, located in Hartland. It dates from the late 15th century with significant alterations made in the first half of the 17th century. The building was modernised and altered again in the later 20th century.

The walls are constructed of very small slate stone rubble, whitewashed at the front. The roof is gable-ended natural slate. There are two axial stone rubble stacks which are circular in design. The left-hand stack is a crude 20th-century replica of the other, which has a dripcourse and chamfered corners and is probably medieval. A further two small brick stacks are located to the rear wing.

The original plan is not entirely clear, but appears to be either a 2 or 3 room-and-through-passage arrangement with probably an integral garderobe and dairy wing at the front of the lower end to the right. The building was originally constructed as an open hall house with a central hearth. The lower end appears always to have been floored with a heated solar on the first floor. At the front of the lower end is a short, very narrow two-storey wing containing the remains of a garderobe in the end wall, reached through a closet on the first floor, with a service room below. Beyond the hall, and divided from it by a full-height solid wall, is a further room likely to be a 17th-century addition which formerly had some early 17th-century plasterwork on the first floor. It was probably added during the first half of the 17th century when the hall was floored and a stack inserted on the rear wall of the lower room. The hall presently has a stack at its higher end which bears no evidence of an early fireplace, so how it was heated in the 17th century remains uncertain. The room beyond it formerly had a stack in its end wall but this has been rebuilt in the second half of the 20th century. This occurred during extensive renovation which involved the removal or destruction of numerous early features such as roof trusses, windows and plasterwork, removing evidence of the early development and form of the house. The ground floor plan was also altered, with the through-passage removed and a larger entrance hall created, presumably taking space from the former hall, along with a 20th-century staircase and a small room beside it. An outbuilding wing behind the right end was converted to further accommodation.

The exterior is two storeys with a traditional asymmetrical four-window front and a narrow wing projecting from the right angle. There is a probably 17th-century gable to the left of centre with a straight joint to its left. Early 19th-century 12-pane sashes are located to the right on the first floor and at the centre on the ground floor, with a 20-pane sash to its left. Paired early 19th-century 9-pane sashes are to the right on the ground floor. A 19th-century 2-light small-paned casement is on the first floor of the large gable to the left and a small single 19th-century light is to its right. To the right of that is a late 19th-century 6-pane sash. To the left on the ground floor is a 2-light 20th-century small-paned casement. A 20th-century plank door is to the right of centre under a slate hood. The very narrow wing projecting from the right end has two 20th-century small-paned 2-light casements on the first floor and a 4-light 20th-century casement below. The rear elevation has late 20th-century PVC windows without glazing bars and an inserted late 20th-century glazed door to the right of centre. A long former outbuilding wing projects from the left end and overlaps a blocked medieval stone doorway on the rear wall of the house, which is chamfered with a Tudor arched head.

The interior features a former hall with an ovolo-moulded cross-beam with ogee-moulded joists and a chamfered half-beam at the left end, which appears to have had the chimney stack inserted in front of it. The right-hand room has chamfered and hollow step-stopped cross beams with similarly decorated joists. A 17th-century open fireplace on the rear wall has chamfered dressed stone jambs and a chamfered and ogee-stopped wooden lintel. In the small front wing, the shaft to the garderobe can be seen in the end wall on the ground floor. The ceiling retains its original wide flat joists. The chamber over the lower end, formerly the solar, has a small medieval fireplace with a rough stone lintel supported on paired curved stone corbels to either side. At the rear of the fireplace are slates set in a herringbone pattern, and the hearth is of slates set on edge with a chamfered stone plinth in front. To either side of the fireplace are small projecting stones probably for holding candles.

The medieval roof survives only over the hall and consists of two cruck-type trusses with no joints visible on the principals, arch-braced collars, threaded purlins and one tier of chamfered and curved windbraces. At the apex is a yoke which apparently took a square-set ridge, although that has now gone. The timbers are smoke-blackened, as is the wall at the lower end of the hall. Early trusses also existed over the solar and garderobe wing of less elaborate construction but these were removed during the 20th-century restoration.

Despite considerable 20th-century alterations, this remains a very interesting building with unusual features such as the garderobe and medieval fireplace. It clearly remained a building of considerable status well into the 17th century, retains an attractive facade and occupies a prominent roadside position.