Orchard House and Front Railings is a Grade II listed building in the Somerset local planning authority area, England. First listed on 28 April 1987. House.

Orchard House and Front Railings

WRENN ID
white-mantel-gorse
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Somerset
Constituency
Glastonbury and Somerton MP: Sarah Dyke (LD)
Country
England
Date first listed
28 April 1987
Type
House
Address
Orchard House and Front Railings, Martock
OS grid reference
ST 457 187
Coordinates
50.96599, -2.77331
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: sale history · EPC · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

Orchard House is a detached house located in Hurst, dating from the 16th century with a later front addition. It is constructed from ham stone rubble but features a colourwashed brick facade in Flemish bond, with ashlar dressings. The roof is made of Welsh slate over stone slate base courses, topped with stepped coped gables and brick chimney stacks. The house has an 'L' plan, is two storeys high, and has five bays, with the fifth bay being a one-bay gabled projection.

The upper windows are horizontal bar casements, with three lights in most bays except for the upper bay three, which has four lights. The lower bay one features a 20th-century four-light window in reconstructed stone surrounds. Bays three and four have plain mullioned windows with four and three lights respectively, while bay two has a 20th-century door set in a deep recess with a plain beaded surround. The north return of bay five contains 20th-century casements, with the lower part of a former shop window partially blocked and a blocked doorway to the left. The north gable reveals an earlier lower roof line.

Inside, the central room boasts a nine-bay deep moulded beam panelled ceiling, and the north wall features a wide fireplace with a chamfered beam, a gable entry, and a winding stone stair with an oval light. There are also 18th-century features in the wings on either side. The central portion has one visible raised cruck, suggesting that others may still be present.

Approximately three meters west of the house, there are wrought iron railings set mostly on low stone walling. These railings have arrowhead tops and cast urn finials on arch-braced standards, along with a matching gate opposite the door. The north section of the railings was newly installed in June 1985 to match the original design.

Local climate

Orchard House and Front Railings receives an average of 820 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 51% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 60% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 31 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 62% of listed buildings. Of these, 11 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • Full EPC report — heating system, energy costs, size, glazing, construction etc.
  • Sale history — 2 transactions since 2021
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  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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