Bridge Farmhouse

Bridge Farmhouse is a farmhouse on the east side of Butleigh High Street. The building dates to the 14th century, with walls rebuilt in stone during the 18th and 19th centuries and internal remodelling in the 17th century. Later alterations were made, particularly in the mid-19th century.

The house is constructed of Lias rubble, squared and coursed to the rear wing, with a stone-coped pantile roof and brick gable-end stacks at the left end and rear right wing. It is arranged in an L-plan with a rear right wing and stands 2 storeys high with a 2-bay front range. The front elevation displays a timber lintel over 8-pane sashes to the left and a 2-light casement with glazing doors to the right of a central 19th-century plank door with glazed panel, transomelight, and gabled pantile hood on a rubble base. The first floor features 17th-century 3-light ovolo-moulded wood-mullioned windows.

The right-hand south elevation, including the rear wing, contains late 16th or 17th-century 3-light hollow-moulded stone-mullioned windows to the rear wing and a blocked archway (possibly a cellar door) in the medieval gable end. This gable end has 14th-century single-light slit windows above two blocked windows. At the rear, a porch between the rear wing and a later lean-to incorporates a reset 14th-century arched doorway with hollow, step, and ogee moulding; a blocked chamfered arched doorway is located inside the porch.

The interior contains 4 two-tier cruck-trusses, all smoke-blackened, with chamfered arched and wind bracing, yoked apex, and tenoned purlins. Windbrace slots to the north truss indicate the roof once extended further than the present gable. Similar crucks appear in the rear wing. A two-centred arched and chamfered stone doorway opens to the first floor rear, and a piscina is positioned on the first-floor centre. Exposed beams and timber framework remain visible throughout. Later features include 17th-century open fireplaces with chamfered bressumer and an 18th-century china cupboard with fluted Ionic pilasters.

The original 14th-century house comprised a small room with an upper chamber to the south (right) divided by a cross passage from a larger room to the north. This is a high-status 14th-century house; the cruck trusses are of a similar type to those in the Glastonbury Abbey barns and the 14th-century barn at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. Butleigh was part of the Glastonbury Abbey estate until 1536.