Lawrence House, Including Outbuilding 6M To Its West

Lawrence House, including an outbuilding 6 metres to its west, stands on the south side of Southgate Road in Wincanton. It is also known as Laurence House or Regency House.

The main house is a three-storey former farmhouse built between 1833 and 1840, incorporating an earlier farm building dating to circa 1800. To its west is an associated two-storey farm building of similar date, with a rear wing added later. The house and its western wing form an L-shaped plan.

The house is constructed of coursed stone rubble, now painted white, with a hipped slate roof featuring overhanging eaves and one surviving brick chimney to its right. The earlier west wing is also built in stone rubble and has a pitched slate roof with a lowered gable end stack. The rear wing is of stone rubble with a hipped slate roof.

The north elevation features a large early 20th-century shop window with decorative timber surrounds, flanked to the right by the main entrance. This entrance has a timber round-arched architrave and a decorative fanlight above a fully-glazed late 20th-century door. At first-floor level are two large sash windows with two smaller ones above, all with stone ashlar surrounds. The east elevation has a 6-over-6 pane sash window at first-floor level above a shop window, with a full dormer to the attic.

The earlier two-storey west wing projects slightly forward and features two segmental brick-arched casement windows on each floor of the front elevation, with a single casement on the narrow east return. The west elevation, facing the courtyard, has a large late 20th-century opening at ground floor with two mid- to late 20th-century casement windows above. To the left are three blocked openings, probably for a former door and windows, with a small mid- to late 20th-century casement window above at first-floor level.

The interior retains many pre-1840 features of quality. These include a tall and elegant open-well staircase with decorative panelling, brackets and wall string, wreathed and ramped handrail and stick balusters. Lath and plaster ceilings survive throughout. Decorative architraves of good quality (particularly on the ground and first floors), panelled doors, surrounds and window shutters, dado rails, cornices and tall skirting boards are present in most rooms, with one fire surround in the attic. The roof appears mainly to date from the 19th century, possibly with earlier timbers surviving. The roof to the earlier wing was probably habitable, as evidenced by surviving lath and plaster walls and a small timber door in the roof partition.

The outbuilding to the west, originating from circa 1800, is constructed of stone rubble with extensive later repairs and alterations in brick dating to the late 19th and circa 1930s. It has a half-hipped slate roof with a brick ridge stack. The north elevation facing the street has two blocked window openings at ground-floor level, with blind gable ends. The south front, facing the courtyard, features a large opening to the left with a timber lintel. To its right is a timber door flanked by horizontally glazed metal casement windows under segmental brick arches. At first-floor level are two large similarly horizontally framed metal casement windows. The roof timbers appear mostly intact with some later repairs.

Lawrence House was probably built as a farmhouse between 1833 and 1840 by extending an earlier farm building, as suggested by an estate map of 1833 and the Wincanton Tithe Map of 1840. By 1887 the number of outbuildings on the site had considerably increased. In 1897 Lawrence House was occupied by farmer James Henry Havelock Lippiatt, and in 1902 by farmer Henry Collard. By 1903 further outbuildings had been added; opposite The Creamery (later the Milk Factory) had appeared. Of the former outbuildings, only that to the west of the former farmhouse now remains.

Late 20th-century works to the rear are not of special interest.