Upcott Farmhouse

Upcott Farmhouse is a farmhouse of late 15th-century origin with 17th-century alterations and additions and an 18th-century extension. The building is rendered cob with a thatched roof, gabled to the left end and hipped to the right. There are three brick stacks: two axial and one at the left gable end.

The original plan was a three-room and through passage arrangement with the lower end to the right. The hall was originally open to the roof from end to end with a central hearth and divided by low partitions. The inner room was floored early on, with a solid wall inserted between it and the hall at an early stage, evidenced by only a light degree of smoke-blackening on the timbers above. The hall and lower room were probably floored in the early 17th century, possibly around 1609. Gable end stacks were added to the lower and inner rooms at about this time, and a hall stack was inserted backing onto the passage. Around the mid-17th century, a wing was added behind the higher end containing a framed staircase and a dairy. In the 18th century, an unheated service room was added beyond the lower room with a granary or store above.

The exterior is two storeys with an asymmetrical four-window front of 20th-century three-light casements, except for two left-hand ground floor windows which have four lights. A wide 19th-century panelled door to the passage at the centre sits under a simple doorhood. The extension at the right-hand end has an original four-light window with square section wood mullions. To its left are stone steps leading to a first floor door, and approximately halfway up is a date-stone inscribed 1609. The rear elevation has a stair wing at the right end with three original wooden chamfered mullion windows: the lowest to the right is of two lights; to its left at an intermediate level is a three-light stair window with a now reduced and blocked two-light window just below the gable.

The interior hall features a fireplace with a chamfered wooden lintel and granite jamb to the left. Leading to the inner room and rear wing are two 17th-century wooden doorframes which are chamfered with decorative stops. The inner room has a chamfered axial beam with raised diamond stops. At the higher end of the passage is a moulded head-beam, possibly from a screen predating the hall stack. A 19th-century staircase has been inserted into the stair wing. At the top of the stairs are two 17th-century chamfered wooden doorframes.

The roof appears to be original from end to end, although only one truss is visible, positioned over the hall. This is a face-pegged jointed cruck with a morticed apex with diagonal ridge and triangular strengthening block below, and butt purlins. In the original lower gable end wall, now an internal wall, is a triangular opening at the very top of the gable with a jowelled smoke-blackened post supporting the ridge. This is a rare surviving smoke vent of fairly crude form, which ventilated the open hall. The rest of the roof is considerably smoke-blackened over the hall and lower end, including the thatch and the wall between the hall and inner room; beyond that the roof is only lightly smoke-blackened.

The building's significance lies in its medieval roof with a rare example of a smoke vent and its 17th-century modifications including the stair wing and related features. The whole survives in an unaltered state with a picturesque facade.