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IoE Number:
261406
Location:
ABBEY FARM HOUSE, PRESTON ROAD (north side)
YEOVIL, SOUTH SOMERSET, SOMERSET
Photographer:
N/A
Date Photographed:
N/A
Date listed:
19 March 1951
Date of last amendment:
19 March 1951
Grade
I
The Images of England website consists of images of listed buildings based on the statutory list as it was in 2001 and does not incorporate subsequent amendments to the list. For the statutory list and information on the current listed status of individual buildings please go to The National Heritage List for England.
ST51NW YEOVIL CP PRESTON ROAD (North side)
1/68 Abbey Farm House
19.3.51
GV I
Farmhouse, now offices and yard of building contractors. Probably built c1420 by
John Stourton II, known as Jenkyn. Ham Stone squared and tooled with worked
ashlar dressings, stone slated roofs. Built on a North/South axis, the principal
elevation faces West with hall on right-hand side, this has two 2- light
mullioned windows set between offset buttresses and a (restored) dais window on
extreme right hand; Next to hall is 2-storey porch, with 2-centred entrance
arch, roll moulded square frame, no hood, blank shield and foliage in spandrels:
Inside vault with ridge and diagonal ribs; stone benches, iron hinges. To left
hand of porch 2-storey portion with mullioned windows to both levels: some C15,
others as late as C19 - some doorways and windows now blocked. At North end of
this block a wide wall with wide coping carrying fine C15 octagonal chimney,
each side having a panel with trefoil head (a second tier damaged by bomb in
1940). North again further 2-storey building (? fodder store) not as high as
main block, with outside steps. Projecting westwards from main block a C19
single storey addition. Internally (not fully inspected) the screens passage
shows work of several periods. The hall, 12.2 x 6.5 metres had the roof lowered
in the 1840's when the South chimney and upper part of dais window were removed:
hall restored C1920 (after a fire) when much new material was introduced and the
chimney and dais window restored, and an intermediate floor added. The North
block much altered, leaving glimpes of old details. The variety of modern
buildings on the East side, which completely masks the former East elevation,
not of interest. Originally Preston Great Farm, always lay-ownership, ("Abbey"
is a C19 misnomer), this is a hall house of considerable importance (Wood,
Margaret: 'The English Medieval House' 1965 Garner, T.E. Stratton, A 'Domestic
Architecture of England during the Tudor Period' 1929, also notes for SANHS by
Sir R. de Z. Hall and E.H. Silcox).