Bondleigh Barton

Bondleigh Barton is a farmhouse dating from the early 16th century with 17th-century alterations. It is built of plastered cob walls, rendered at the rear, with a gable-ended thatched roof. Four brick chimneys stand at intervals along the roof line: one at each gable end and two axial stacks positioned close together, the left-hand stack having a stone base.

The house displays an unusual 4-room-and-through-passage plan, rather than the more typical 3-room arrangement, and remarkably it has maintained this same length throughout its history. The original room disposition is not entirely certain, but an open hall occupied the left end of the house, as evidenced by the heaviest smoke-blackening in the roof timbers. The partitions were initially only head-height, with smoke-blackening extending in diminishing degree across the roof to the right end, suggesting the process of flooring the house occurred at different stages. The large kitchen at the left-hand end was likely left open to the roof longest. A dairy lies between the hall and kitchen with a short passage behind, while the room at the lower end of the passage, positioned unusually opposite to the kitchen rather than adjoining it, is notably of higher status and probably functioned as a parlour. Both the hall and this parlour had axial stacks inserted at their backing to the passage. The kitchen features a large gable-end cob stack.

Externally, the house is 2 storeys with an asymmetrical 4-window front elevation. The windows are small-paned early 20th-century casements: 2-light windows on the first floor and 3-light windows on the ground floor. The first-floor windows have raised eyebrow shapes in the thatch above, decorated with bargeboards. An early 19th-century 6-panel door stands at the front of the passage towards the right-hand end. The rear elevation is largely windowless except for two inserted 20th-century windows at the right-hand end, one on each floor. According to the present occupants, a wood-mullion window exists behind the render on the ground floor to the left of centre.

Interior features are remarkably unaltered. The kitchen retains a large open fireplace with a chamfered wooden lintel forming a depressed 4-centred arch, and two ovens in the left-hand side. A longitudinal chamfered beam with run-out stops spans this room. The adjoining dairy has a door with moveable ventilation slats. The hall contains a central chamfered cross beam with hollow step stops and two similar half beams, and a large open fireplace with a chamfered wooden lintel and elongated pyramid stops. An early 19th-century wall cupboard with panelled doors stands in the higher end. Both the passage and the lower room have similar heavy cross beams, and the latter has a smaller fireplace with a similarly finished wooden lintel.

The original roof survives virtually complete, consisting of 7 bays of open trusses extending from end to end. Except for a section at the centre, the original smoke-blackened rafters and thatch are preserved. The smoke-blackening is heaviest over the left-hand end and gradually lightens; the right-hand end truss is hardly blackened although the thatch and rafters above it are, suggesting this may be an insertion. Throughout, the trusses are of uniform form: substantial straight principals, collars halved and jointed with notches (some cranked), and trenched purlins.

This house is significant for two reasons. It preserves a variety of important features, most notably a complete original roof structure. It also displays an unusual plan of particular interest both as a substantial medieval house and for the form its 17th-century remodelling took. The building forms an attractive group with the nearby Church.