Barne End New House

New House and Barne End, Christow

This is a former farmhouse, probably dating from the early 16th century and remodelled in the early 17th century, with a rear wing added in the mid or late 17th century. The house was divided into two dwellings in the late 20th century when the barn at the right end was converted to domestic use to form part of Barne End.

The exterior is whitewashed rendered cob and stone with a slate roof, gabled at the left end and hipped at the right end over the former barn. The left end has an axial granite stack with a granite shaft and tapered cap to the main block, with a similar end stack to the wing. An axial stack right of centre has a rendered shaft.

The plan is unusual, featuring a through-passage layout that originally included an open hall with the lower end to the right. The hall stack backs onto the passage, and there are two rooms at the left end of the hall: first a narrow unheated room, then a heated room at the extreme left end which appears to have been designed as a parlour but was actually used as a service room at one time, with a drain in the floor uncovered during renovations. A rear wing at right angles to the main hall gives an overall T-shaped plan, with a former newel stair adjacent to the stack of the rear wing. A straight stair, probably dating from the 19th century, has been inserted between the rear wing and main block. The passage, lower end and adjoining barn now form a separate dwelling (Barne End).

The exterior shows two storeys with an asymmetrical 3:2 window front. New House has a 20th-century front door in the centre into the narrow unheated room to the left of the hall, with a 20th-century lean-to porch to the left of Barne End leading into the former passage. The windows are 3-light late 19th or 20th-century timber casements with glazing bars. The converted barn at the right end has a 20th-century door at the extreme right and 20th-century casements with glazing bars.

The interior is of considerable interest. The hall in New House has an open fireplace with a granite lintel and jambs and a relieving arch over the lintel. It features a chamfered, step-stopped axial beam and a plank and muntin screen at the higher end with a jetty over it. The muntins are chamfered and stopped off at hall bench level, with the bench end surviving. A rare survival of probably 17th-century painted decoration appears on the screen, bench end and jetty beam, including flowers and abstract patterns.

The room at the extreme left end has an open fireplace with granite chamfered jambs and a mutilated timber lintel with run-out stops, and a chamfered crossbeam with scroll stops. This room is said to have formerly had an open drain, and the small adjacent room was formerly cobbled.

The ground floor room of the rear wing has the remains of an open fireplace with a granite lintel and chamfered stopped cross beam. The first floor room to the left has a small 17th-century fireplace with granite jambs and an ovolo-moulded timber lintel. A closed partition rises above the jetty at the higher end of the hall.

The passage in Barne End has a good doorway at the front. The granite ashlar back of the hall stack is exposed in the passage, with the rest of the partition made up of a plank and muntin screen with a blocked doorway featuring a cambered lintel that formerly led into the hall. The lower end room has a chamfered crossbeam and an open fireplace with a timber lintel.

The roof is not fully accessible, but a lightly smoke-blackened pegged jointed cruck over the hall has a diagonally-set ridge and sooted rafters. A closed truss over the passage in Barne End is lightly sooted on the hall side. The original building origins show an open hall arrangement, though the extent of the original building and sequence of flooring are not entirely clear due to limited roof timber access. A higher end jetty in the hall must have remained open to the roof when the higher end was floored.

This is an important medieval house with an unusual plan farm.