Middle Drewston Farmhouse Including Garden Walls To The Front

This is a farmhouse, likely originating in the 16th century but largely rebuilt in the 17th and early 18th centuries. A 19th-century extension and shippon (a former animal shelter) were rebuilt around 1960. The farmhouse is constructed of plastered granite rubble with large dressed quoins, granite stacks with granite ashlar chimney shafts, and a thatched roof, with corrugated asbestos on the shippon.

The building is situated on a gentle slope and originally comprised a three-room-and-through-passage layout facing south-south-west. A parlour with a projecting end stack sits at the uphill end, while the hall has a large axial stack backing onto the passage. The shippon at the left end was lowered to one storey and converted into a kitchen circa 1960. A 19th-century stair turret projecting to the rear of the hall was enlarged to include a service room and new stairs. The original open hall house was so heavily renovated in the 17th and 18th centuries that there is no visible fabric from the 16th century. The farmhouse is now two storeys high.

The exterior has an irregular three-window front, with additional windows added to the shippon, all being 20th-century casements with glazing bars. A roughly central front passage doorway contains a 20th-century panelled door and a monopitch slate hood. The roof is gable-ended. The parlour stack has weathered offsets and is supported by a 20th-century buttress. The left-hand wall (towards the former shippon) retains a central slit window and a blocked drain hole.

Internally, most of the structural detail dates to the mid to late 17th century. The hall features a large granite fireplace with an unchamfered oak lintel and a side oven. A crossbeam in the hall is soffit-chamfered with run-out stops. The parlour, which is also from the 17th century, has a crossbeam with ovolo-moulded and scroll-stopped ends, and exposed soffit-chamfered and scroll-stopped joists. The parlour fireplace is blocked. The 17th-century stair was replaced in the 19th century, but a double doorway off the top landing remains from that earlier period. Doorframes throughout the house, including the rear passage doorframe, are of solid oak, though without finished surrounds. Some 18th-century joinery is also present. The roof is believed to have 17th-century A-frame trusses, with bases of straight principals visible on the first floor.

The front garden is enclosed by tall granite rubble boundary walls, with a 20th-century wrought iron gate in the gateway.