Kingstone Farmhouse

Kingstone Farmhouse is a detached farmhouse of early 16th-century date, reshaped during the 17th century and later. It is built of ham stone rubble and near ashlar with ashlar dressings, and has a plain clay tiled roof with stone slate base courses between stepped coped gables and stone and brick chimney stacks.

The building is arranged in a T-plan with two storeys and attics. The entrance is in the west crosswing, which is three bays wide. This wing features hollow-chamfer mullioned windows to the upper bay 1 and lower bays 2 and 3 (the latter being 20th century); a blocked window in upper bay 2; and a three-light 18th-century pattern leaded casement to upper bay 3. To lower bay 1 is an ashlar stone porch with Welsh slate roof and a doorway probably of 19th-century date. On the north gable of the crosswing is a three-light hollow-chamfered mullioned window without label above, and below it an angled bay window with beaded mullions and flat roof (described as 1+2+1 lights). An outshut with a half-hipped two-storey building is attached to the north-east corner; this was formerly thatched but was unroofed in March 1986. On the east gable of the east wing is a four-light mullioned window with label to the first floor.

The south elevation has three bays, with the projecting gable of the crosswing at bay 1, a proudstanding chimney stack, and a mullioned window to the attic with four and three-light hollow chamfers. Mullioned windows light lower bays 2 and 3, with a 20th-century casement to upper bay 2 and a stairlight to the left. A marked straight joint separates bays 2 and 3. A beaded mullioned window appears in the return.

Interior features include rough beams in the north room of the west crosswing, formerly plastered over, and a possible old fireplace in the west wall concealed by a 20th-century insertion. The central lobby contains a later staircase, possibly positioned over the original. The south room has a four-panel chamfer-beam ceiling, and its east-wall window retains vertical iron and saddlebars with rebates for shutters, and another suspected early fireplace. The west room of the east wing has a modified fireplace with a formerly gable chimney, a wattle-and-daub partition dividing it from an outshut on the north side, and beams chamfered with keel stops. The east room of the east wing is an addition, with a second straight staircase and keel-stopped beams with a jettied arrangement to the north wall.

Not all roof trusses are accessible, but those in the west crosswing are windbraced in at least part and carried on the walls rather than on crucks. The building is interpreted as a T-shaped house of the early 16th century, possibly originally all two-storey but alternatively with a three-bay open hall, with the east room of the east wing and some modifications made around 1600, and further modifications in the mid-18th century. To the north of the added room, and obscuring the jetty, stands a two-storied building containing one 18th-century window with internal shutters and a small stair window in the west wall, with a brick-built oven in the north wall. A well is said to exist under the floor; this structure may be the successor to a detached kitchen.

The property was the Rectory House of Kingstone and was given to the Vicars Choral of Wells Cathedral in 1382. By 1636 the house had an orchard, garden, two barns, a stable with outhouses, a great court, and a pigeon house. By 1650 the accommodation comprised a hall, kitchen, buttery, and several lodging rooms over, with one barn of stone and thatched roof.