Narracombe Farmhouse, Including Stone Wall And Mounting Block On North Side Of Front Garden

Narracombe Farmhouse, including stone wall and mounting block on north side of front garden

This is a farmhouse of 16th-century origin, or possibly earlier, that was considerably enlarged in 1836. The walls are solid rendered stone or cob, beneath a slated roof with deeply projecting eaves-cornice at the front and catslide at the rear. Small rendered chimneysstacks sit on each gable at the front and on the left side-wall at the rear. A large 16th-century granite ashlar stack with thatch weatherings (which heated the original hall) rises on the rear slope of the roof, topped with a yellow-brick shaft added later. Beside it stands a 20th-century red-brick stack. The building has a double-depth plan.

The front range of 1836 comprises a central entrance-hall and stair compartment with a principal room on either side, rising 2 storeys with a garret in the front range. Behind lies the original house, which became the service wing in the 19th century. This earlier structure was previously a longhouse, containing a hall and inner room with the hall stack backing on to the through-passage. The symmetrical main front faces east, measuring 3 windows wide with a central doorway. The windows contain original 8-paned sashes. A 6-panelled door with 2 lowest panels flush is topped by a patterned fanlight. A granite ashlar porch of about 1850, with triangular pediment, contains a 20th-century glazed door.

At the right-hand side, set well back, the projecting end of the older rear range has a small addition to its front. The ground storey of this addition contains a 2-light wood-mullioned casement window, possibly of 18th-century date, with 3 19th-century panes per light. In the second storey side wall is a similar 3-light window with leaded panes, the centre light having an opening iron casement. A matching 2-light window appears above at garret level in the side wall of the 1836 range.

From the right-hand end of the projecting rear range extends a low stone rubble wall dividing the garden from the lane into the farmyard. This contains a mounting-block designed so that a horse standing in the lane could be mounted from the garden. A flight of 4 granite steps leads up to a small opening at the top of the wall, closed by an ornamental iron gate. The rear wall of the house has mostly 20th-century plastic windows, though the left-hand ground-storey window retains a 19th-century 3-light wood casement with 8 panes per light. In the second storey, the left-hand window and the third window from the left have 2-light 19th-century wood casements with 6 panes per light. A doorway at the rear of the through-passage has an early or mid-18th-century 5-panelled door with raised-and-fielded ovolo-moulded panels, the top 2 panels now glazed, with large old strap-hinges on the inside. A wide lean-to porch with solid side walls and slated roof adjoins it. To its left is a mounting block with 4 granite steps.

The interior of the front range features a wooden geometric stair with thin square-section balusters, shaped step-ends, and a handrail scrolled at the foot. The front room to the right has a pink and green marble chimneypiece with elliptical-headed recesses on either side.

The rear range, formerly a longhouse, contains a range of 18th-century cupboards with raised-and-fielded, ovolo-moulded panelled doors separating the passage from the former shippon. This latter space, now converted to a sitting-room, has a cobbled floor with a central drain under the floorboards, a blocked door in the rear wall next to the passage, and 18th-century panelled shutters. The passage has plain upper-floor joists. The back wall of the hall fireplace, forming the right-hand side of the passage, is of granite ashlar with chamfered plinth and cornice. The fireplace itself has hollow-moulded granite jambs, that on the right with a diagonal-cut stop, and a chamfered wood lintel with step-stops. Above it on the right-hand side, fixed to a wooden board, is a brass spit-wheel, believed to date from about 1860. A brick-lined oven occupies the back of the fireplace, with a stone opening of curved head; the shallow shelf in front of it was destroyed within living memory.

The hall has a stone-flagged floor. A central beam and half-beam against the chimney carry ovolo-moulding and run-out stops; between the 2 beams are ovolo-moulded joists. Beside the fireplace is a bacon cupboard with a flue (now blocked) leading into the fireplace.

The roof structure was rebuilt in the 19th century, leaving simply a pent-roof against the back wall of the 1836 range.