ABBOTTS BARTON FARMHOUSE

The property is approached through a magnificent dining hall with its timbered walls, ceilings and large open fireplace with stone surround. The room creates a dramatic entrance to this wonderful property. The dining hall provides access to the principal rooms of the main house including the oak panelled drawing room, kitchen and study. The kitchen has been modestly furnished, in keeping with the period of the house, featuring a large inglenook fireplace and a four oven Aga which adds further to the charm of this flag stone floored room. Beyond the kitchen is an excellent family room believed to possibly once have been the dairy. A utility room, pantry and cloakroom complete the ground floor accommodation. A staircase from the rear hallway leads down to some extensive cellars as well as an original stairway up to the first floor.

On the first floor, a magnificent vaulted master bedroom is situated at the eastern end of the house close to a large family bathroom. There are three further bedrooms and a first floor sitting room. The rear staircase and a further family bathroom complete the first floor accommodation.

THE COTTAGE
The adjoining cottage to Abbotts Barton Farmhouse can be either approached from the ground floor of the farmhouse or via its own separate access. The front door leads through a wonderful cottage kitchen/dining area with a flagstone floor and there is a separate sitting room. The sitting room is particularly attractive once again featuring a beautiful stone fireplace and a door leads out into the rear
gardens. On the first floor there are 2 bedrooms and a family bathroom. The cottage also has a large cellar. The cottage is currently being utilised as part of the farmhouse but could easily be separated to create annexed accommodation.

OUTSIDE
Outside the property consists of approximately 1.2 acres of lawns, orchard and walled gardens. The property is approached through a five bar gate leading via a gravel tree lined driveway to the rear parking area and garaging.
The walled gardens at the front of the property are incredibly attractive with areas of terraced lawn ordered by stone pathways with clipped box hedging, rose collection and specimen trees. A terrace adjacent to the front of the property makes the most of its south facing aspect. To the rear of the house there is an attractive ornamental fruit and vegetable garden laid out in front of an Alitex greenhouse. This doubles as a delightful summerhouse. Next to the kitchen is a small herb garden with outbuildings. A pretty brick and flint Dovecot is also a fabulous feature of the gardens. Garage a stunning brick and flint detached double garage with adjoining workshop.

HISTORICAL NOTES
Abbotts Barton Farmhouse has a much-documented history. The name ‘Abbots Barton’ literally means the Barton (farmstead) of the Abbotts of Hyde. The farmhouse is a rare example of a Monastic farmhouse of the Tudor era built between 1480 and 1520. It was the home farm of Hyde Abbey Monastery providing produce for the monastic high table. The Monks propagated the meadows around Abbots Barton Farm for around 400 years until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. The estate was dismantled by Thomas Wriothesley , later Chancellor of England, at the behest of King Henry VIII and the land and buildings were granted to Walter Chaundler by Wriothesley. He was a farmer and gentleman who also held the post of Mayor of Winchester from 1530-1531. The Estate remained in his family for 4 generations until, in 1652, the family were forced to sell the estate to Cromwell as punishment for supporting the Royalist cause. The next owners were Anne Mynne of Epsom and her husband, Sir John Lewkenor of West Dean, Chichester. They owned a number of estates in the South. The house fell into disrepair during this time, having been let to tenants, and required Lady Anne’s carpenter Robert Norris and her bricklayer Thomas George to travel to Winchester from her Sussex estate to affect repairs. Their son John inherited the estate and when he died in 1706 the estate passed to Edward Knight of Chawton, Jane Austen’s brother. The property was then bought by William Simmonds, another wealthy landowner, whose family remained on the estate until 1920. Abbotts Barton Farmhouse was eventually purchased by Winchester City Council in 1966 and
subsequently let and then finally sold in 1989.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE BUILDINGS
The building’s age makes Abbotts Barton Farmhouse likely to be one of the oldest houses in Winchester still retaining the original medieval hall and other pieces of the monastery farm building, believed to have been constructed during the late 1400s. The building is a rare example of a well-preserved farmhouse from this period and could be said to have been part of the Great Rebuilding Revolution (mid-16th Century) where medieval hall houses saw the insertion of a first floor in the hall space providing additional living space above, creating the chamber over the hall, due to the advent and growing popularity of the hall chimney that is synonymous with chimneys we see today.

The first floor was originally jettied and consisted of four rooms arranged as two paired chambers as seen today but the access to the chamber was via an aisle on the south side, now lost. These chambers were open to the roof with fine arch-braced open trusses over two of them. This evidence suggests that the building was planned as monastic lodging range and as such is a rare survival. An impressive timber framed staircase was added on the west side of the house that now provides access to the first floor. It is known that in 1671 major repair work was carried out including the panelling in oak of the northern ground floor room (still remaining), known then as the parlour, and the complete rebuilding of the eastern façade in brick with new windows, this being a common modernisation in the Queen Anne period. The latter operation resulted in the chopping off of the projecting first floor jetty rather than the more usual building out at the ground floor level. It is at this time the ceilings were inserted to the first floor bedrooms over the hall. All but one of these ceilings has been removed revealing the beautiful and original roof timbers of the former medieval hall structure.

The adjoining cottage, built in the Georgian period, occupied a wing of the former Farmhouse. Parts of this much earlier building still remain such as the large stone chimneys, fireplaces with historic graffiti and a cellar. The original Manor being highly likely to have been home to Abbots as a country retreat pre-dissolution then converted to a farmhouse after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. A thousand years of history is recorded for the land Abbots Barton Farm occupies. 400 years under the care of the monks and a further 350 years of farming and architectural history in the hands of the tenants that followed with the farm scape remaining largely unaltered until relatively recently. The house and grounds represent a rich piece of history and significance rarely seen which provides a beautiful family home.

OUTBUILDINGS
Single garage, Dovecote, Alitex greenhouse, Timber framed outbuildings in kitchen garden.