MDE20313 - Original 17th Century farmhouse at Barton Town Farm (Building)

Outbuilding now used as stables and store-shed originally farmhouse to Barton Farm before present farmhouse built in late 19th Century. 17th Century with possibly 18th Century addition at left end. Stone rubble with slate roofs of 2 heights with gable ends. Large rubble stack with slated weathering to cap at left gable end of original range and stack with shaft demolished at left end of 18th Century addition. Originally rectangular on plan possibly single cell or small 2-cell farmhouse with gable entry south side of stack, and winder staircase to north side. 2 storeys. 2 windows on each floor to main range, that to bottom left is 19th Century, rest 20th Century. Extension to left is recessed slightly and has 20th Century casement above window opening with plank shutter to left of stable plank door. Blocked gable entry and blocked doorway into lean-to with corrugated iron roof at right gable end. Slate roof to low dairy outshut to rear with plank door. Interior: upper floors removed. Scroll-stopped chamfered lintel to fireplace. Roof timbers replaced. [1] The building has been converted for residential use. [2] The building was not assessed during the rapid condition survey of Exmoor's Listed Buildings 2012-13. [3] The cottage probably formed the original farmhouse and dates from the late 17th or early 18th Century. It originally had a gable entry single unit plan and has a stop-chamfered fireplace lintel (the chimney projects from the west end wall) and two transverse beams with chamfered surviving in the interior. The entrance is positioned on the south side of the chimney and there is a winder stair to its north, built with a mixture of wooden and stone treads. The main ground floor room would have served as the kitchen and living room, with a scullery and perhaps a dairy housed in the rear outshot. The first floor contained a single unheated bedroom. The roof is three bays long, with two trusses with principal rafters that are half lap jointed at the apex and extend above this joint to form the seating for the ridge. Each truss has a halved, notched collar. A single unit, two storeyed range was built on the western end, probably during the mid to late 18th Century and offset so as not to block the main entrance. There is no direct access to the ground floor of this range from the interior of the house but the first floor housed a second bedroom that could be accessed from the main winder stair. [4] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [5] The building was assessed as part of the rapid condition survey of Exmoor’s Listed Buildings 2018-19. It received a BAR score of 6. [6]