Drascombe Barton

Drascombe Barton is a house, formerly a farmhouse, built in the mid 17th century with superficial late 19th century modernisation. It is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble chimney stacks (the kitchen stack possibly cob) topped with 19th and 20th century brick, and a thatch roof.

The building faces north-east across a farmyard and is built down a gentle slope. It has an unusual and distinctive plan comprising four rooms and two through passages across its length. The uphill right end room is the parlour, terraced slightly into the slope with a gable-end stack. Between the parlour and hall is a passage containing a 19th century stair. The hall has an axial stack backing onto this passage. Downhill from the hall lies an unheated dairy or store (now containing a secondary stair), then the second through passage, and at the left end the kitchen with a large gable-end stack. The lower passage has a two-storey porch to the rear, suggesting the house may originally have faced south-west. The purpose of the upper passage is unclear; it may have had a doorway to the farmyard and contained the main 17th century stair, although both hall and parlour fireplaces have alcoves that could have contained winder stairs. The house appears to be a single-phase building, though an earlier house may have occupied the site and influenced the layout. The building is two storeys throughout.

The exterior features an irregular six-window front of 19th and 20th century casements, those on the first floor with thatch eyebrows over them. Both front doors are 19th century: the lower a plank door, the upper part-glazed and panelled. The roof is gable-ended. The rear has similar fenestration but fewer windows; some 20th century windows lack glazing bars. The gabled porch has a 20th century door.

The interior is well preserved. The hall and parlour are the finest rooms and have similar finishes. Both contain crossbeams with broad ovolo mouldings and step stops, with scratch-moulded joists. At the downhill end of the hall stands an oak plank-and-muntin screen with a scratch-moulded headbeam and ovolo-moulded and step-stopped muntins above the original oak bench. A similar plank-and-muntin screen shows between parlour and passage. The parlour fireplace is of granite ashlar with an ovolo-moulded oak lintel; it was formerly lined with decorative sgraffito plaster. The hall has a larger fireplace of granite ashlar with a hollow-chamfered surround. The rear wall of the hall contains an original 17th century cupboard with a door carved with a diamond design. The dairy crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with step stops. A stone rubble partition divides the dairy from the lower passage; the other side of the lower passage is a flimsy 20th century partition. The kitchen crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with double bar-scroll stops. The kitchen fireplace has a massive reused oak beam as its lintel, soffit-chamfered with scroll stops. The alcove to the left contains two ovens; the alcove to the right was either a curing chamber or stair well. The lower passage has an oak shoulder-headed doorframe, usually considered early 16th century in date, though likely reused; 17th century revival examples are cited. Little 17th century carpentry detail is now exposed on the first floor, though a couple of chamfered oak doorframes with scroll stops remain. Most of the joinery detail dates to the 19th century, including an unusual door with inlaid ebony to the parlour. The roof comprises A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars and dovetail-shaped halvings. The principals are lap-jointed onto vertical posts set in the walls.

This farmhouse forms a group with its front garden wall, butterwell and cider house, and also with the nearby important farmhouses Nattonhole and Hobhouse, both less than 400 metres away.