Black Street House

Details

SX 69 SE SOUTH TAWTON SOUTH TAWTON

4/197 Black Street House 22.2.67 GV II*

House, former farmhouse. Early-mid C16 with major late C16 and C17 improvements, thorough refurbishment in the early C19, modernised 1986. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; granite stacks with granite ashlar chimneyshafts; slate roof, formerly thatch. Plan and development: L-shaped building. The main block faces east. It has an altered 3-room-and-through-passage plan. Small unheated inner room, probably a former dairy at the left (southern) end. The hall has an axial stack backing on to the passage and the service end has 2 rooms, the inner one with an axial stack backing onto the outer one. Parlour wing projects at right angles in front of the inner room. The parlour stack backs on to the main block and there is a small unheated store room on the end of the parlour. The original house occupied the main block and then the hall and passage at least were open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The effects of the early C19 refurbishment have hidden most of the evidence of the later C16 and C17 development. Nevertheless it seems likely that the hall fireplace was inserted with a passage chamber in the mid or late C16 and the hall was floored over in the C17. It is not clear when the service room was divided and the stack inserted there. The parlour wing was added in the early or mid C17. The present house is basically the result of the early C19 refurbishment. At this time the passage rear doorway was blocked by a new main stair, the turret of which projects to rear. Also the inner service room was converted to a parlour/drawing room, the hall a dining room and the original parlour to a kitchen. House is 2 storeys. Exterior: main block has a regular but not symmetrical 4-window front of C19 16- pane sashes. Passage front doorway is left of centre and has a C19 6-panel door in front of a shallow porch under a low-pitched roof. Roof is gable-ended to right and hipped to light. The inner side of the former parlour wing contains the original C17 4-light granite-mullioned window with a roll-moulded surround and contains rectangular panes of leaded glass. The granite hoodmould labels are carved with the initials RH. This wing has hipped roof. Interior: main block is largely the result of an apparently superficial early C19 refurbishment. No carpentry shows in any of the rooms and the fireplaces are blocked by C19 grates. The joinery detail is early C19 including the main open string stair. Nevertheless the former plan is preserved and for instance the size of the hall fireplace shows around the chimneypiece. An alcove to rear at the lower end of the hall is throught to be the former stairwell. The original roof survives over the hall and it is unusually sophisticated for the area. It is 3 bays with ovolo-moulded arch-braced trusses with intermediate trusses and sets of inverted windbraces. It is smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. The roof over the inner room and service end is inaccessible. The former parlour has a plain soffit-chamfered crossbeam and the fireplace is granite ashlar with a broad roll- moulded surround (its left side is rebuilt in C19 brick with an inserted oven). C19 cream oven to rear. Roof of this part carried on A-frame trusses witn pegged lap- jointed collars.

Listing NGR: SX6558594492

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

94997

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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