Welcombe Barton Including Front Garden Wall To East

Welcombe Barton is a farmhouse of early 17th-century date, probably representing a major remodelling of an earlier medieval house, with 18th-century alterations and additions. The building is constructed of local slate rubble, partly rendered at the rear, with a scantle slate roof featuring gabled and half-hipped ends. Stone rubble chimney stacks include an axial stack with a rendered shaft, and a gable end stack that has been rebuilt.

The house is L-shaped in plan. The main front range contains two rooms: an unheated room at the lower left (south) end, now used as the kitchen, with a doorway accessed through a 2-storey porch; and the hall to the right, heated by an axial stack at its lower left end with an oven. The hall has a shallow bay at the front with a small unheated closet between the bay and the porch. Behind the hall is a parlour wing with a gable end stack. Behind the kitchen is a dairy outshut, and between the dairy and parlour wing stands a stair tower. The plan appears to result from a major early 17th-century remodelling and 18th-century improvements. The house is probably of medieval origins, with the hall originally open to the roof. The major early 17th-century remodelling involved raising the eaves, flooring the hall, adding the shallow bay and small unheated closet in front of the hall (possibly originally a stair turret), and adding the 2-storey porch in front of the cross-passage. The 2-storey parlour wing is also an early 17th-century addition. The dairy outshut appears earlier than the 18th-century stair tower. Much internal joinery dates to the 18th century.

Externally, the house is 2 storeys with an asymmetrical 3-window frontage to each side. The façade features a large projecting 2-storey porch left of centre, with a segmental timber lintel to the doorway and a 19th-century panelled inner door; a 20th-century casement lights the chamber above. To the right of the porch is a 19th-century 2-light casement with glazing bars on the ground floor and a blocked window with 20th-century casement above. To the left of the porch is a 20th-century casement on the ground floor and 20th-century 12-pane sash above. The right (north) side has circa early 19th-century 2-light 12-pane sashes on the ground floor and a large 20th-century casement above. The rear elevation is rendered with various 20th-century casements and sashes. The front garden area wall adjoining the house, probably dating to the 18th century, is constructed of coloured slate rubble with cement capping, forming a low thick wall enclosing a small rectangular garden area and pathway to the porch.

Internally, the hall's main ceiling beam is unchamfered, whilst the beam to the large bay at the front is ovolo moulded with bar stops. An ovolo moulded beam is set in the chimney-breast over the fireplace, which has a plain chamfered timber lintel with straight cut stops and an oven in the back. Under the north window of the hall an old bench survives, and the west wall contains two cupboards, one with ventilation slits. Beside the fireplace is a 29th-century settle with a tall curved back containing a cupboard. The parlour in the rear (west) wing has an unchamfered cross-beam hacked for plaster and a fireplace with a chamfered timber lintel with ogee stops and dressed stone jambs, but no oven. The parlour retains 18th-century dado panelling. The kitchen contains a chamfered axial beam and half-beam with straight cut stops, and a small window to the dairy at the back with a chamfered frame and stanchion bar. Inside the front doorway in the kitchen a lobby has been created with some old wooden hat pegs. The dairy has slate shelves and a brick floor. The hall's floor is slate. The 18th-century dog-leg staircase has a closed string, square newels with moulded caps, moulded handrail, and closely-spaced stick balusters. The first floor contains many 18th-century 2-panel doors. The doorway to the small chamber over the porch has a chamfered frame with ogee stops; the porch chamber contains a section of early 17th-century moulded plaster frieze decorated with a trailing plant and rosettes. The roof space was not available for inspection (March 1988), though the principals exposed on the first floor appear to be straight.