Descart House

Farm complex, built c.1800, comprising L-plan block having four-bay two-storey house with basement with flat-roofed single-bay two-storey extension attached to east end, and nine-bay two-storey range of outbuildings attached to west end of rear (north) elevation. Further farmyard structures to east and north-east. House has pitched slate roof, half-hipped to west end, rendered chimneystacks and cast-iron rainwater goods, roughcast rendered walls, and square-headed window and door openings with patent reveals and replacement uPVC windows and door, latter set into later flat-roofed windbreak; further round-headed replacement uPVC door to end bay. Outbuildings have segmental-headed carriage arch to south end, now part of house, pitched slate roof with cast-iron rainwater goods, whitewashed rubble stone walls, square-headed openings with timber fittings, elliptical-headed carriage arches, one now partly blocked to form window. Site slopes from east to west resulting in single-storey elevation to rear. Detached two-storey outbuilding to east of house, having single-storey lean-to to south elevation, with pitched slate roof, rubble stone walls, square-headed window openings and segmental-arched carriage arch to front (west) gable having timber battened double-leaf doors. Twentieth-century barrel-roofed iron barn on masonry plinth to north-east of site having masonry lean-to to rear. Twentieth-century monopitch barn to east of site having corrugated-iron roof and rendered walls. House set back from, and perpendicular to, road. Rubble stone boundary walls to roadside with twentieth-century recessed entrance having wrought-iron gates within splayed concrete block walls and gate piers.

This farm complex is notable for its principal form as an L-plan block, with the dwelling house forming the shorter side. The house has irregular fenestration, but the outbuildings are more regular. The whitewashed outbuilding range has a striking presence from the roadside, in part due to its elevated siting. The integral carriage arches display skilled stone-masonry. The house entrance has changed over time - in 1836 it was to the north of the present entrance, in 1910 to the south, and in the twentieth-century relocated to its current position.