Description

LYDEARD ST LAWRENCE

189/0/10016 WEST LEIGH
18-JUL-03 Westleigh Farmhouse including outbuild
ing and well-head immediately north

II
Farmhouse, outbuilding and well-head. C18; remodelled circa early C19; probably a reconstruction of an earlier house. Stone rubble with red brick dressings. Two-span slate roof with stone coped gable ends. Brick gable-end stacks.
PLAN: Double-depth plan with kitchen to left and parlour to right, central entrance passage to stair hall behind parlour and with service rooms at the back; a range at the left [west] end has a large fireplace with a re-set C17 bressumer.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Almost symmetrical 3-bay south front with C19 16-pane sashes with cambered brick arches and brick jambs; central doorway with brick round arch, semi-circular traceried fanlight and flush-panel door. East side has large round-headed stair window with sash complete with glazing bars. At rear north C19 casements and sashes with glazing bars. Doorway on west side of main range with fielded panel and glazed door. Lower west range has wide doorway on south front with studded plank door.
INTERIOR is exceptionally intact and complete with most of its original features, such as C18/19 joinery, including fielded-panel doors, architraves, dado rails, chimneypieces, cupboards, staircases, screens and grilles. Kitchen has large fireplace with moulded chimneypiece and shelf and cupboard to left with panelled doors and drawers. Parlour has dado rail, Victorian chimneypiece and fine pair of china cupboards with shaped shelves, panelled and glazed doors and broad key-motif frieze to its architrave. Hall has panelled door to service end with Chinoisserie panel and grille over. Dairy has stone shelves. Main open-well open-string stairs with stick balusters, column newels and ramped moulded handrail. Bedchambers, some with chimneypieces, one with Georgian iron grate and cupboards with drawers below. Panelled door with grille over to attic stairs which has column newels and stick balusters. Main range 7-bay tenoned purlin roof with queen-post trusses with angle-struts,; king-post trusses at east end; two tiers of tenoned purlins and common-rafters intact. Large former kitchen in range at west end with chamfered cross-beams with hollow step-stops at one end and a large fireplace with re-set early C17 moulded timber bressumer, oven and boiler to left; loft floor above open to roof. Stone flag floors throughout much of ground floor.
INCLUDING, at rear north, stone domed well-head and circa late C18 or early C19 small stone outbuilding with corrugated-iron sheet roof with gabled ends, and on south front central doorway and flanking windows with iron bars and with re-set C17 chamfered timber 2-light window above; tenoned-purlin roof structure, complete with common-rafters and battens.
Westleigh Farmhouse is a remarkable survival of a farmhouse, virtually unaltered since the C19 and complete with most of the original internal joinery and other features.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26388331

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)