West Ford Farmhouse

Details

SX 79 SW DREWSTEIGNTON

5/77 West Ford Farmhouse


II

Farmhouse. Early C17 (probably C16 origins) with later C17 improvements, modernised
in the mid or late C18. Plastered stone rubble, maybe with cob; stone rubble stacks
topped with C19 and C20 brick; corrugated iron roof (formerly thatch).
Plan and development: 4-room-and-through-passage plan house facing north-north-
west, say north, and built down the hillslope. The inner room is terraced into the
hillslope at the uphill right (west) end. It has an end stack. The hall has a
large axial stack backing onto the passage. There are 2 rooms in the service end,
the larger end one has an end stack. Dairy block projecting at right angles to rear
of the hall and inner room and stair turret in angle of the dairy and main block.
The house seems to have been virtually rebuilt through two or three building phases
in tne C17 and nothing shows that is earlier. Nevertheless its origins as a late
medieval hall house are suspected. The hall fireplace is early C17 and both hall
and inner room chambers jetty into the hall. The hall was floored over in the mid
C17, probably at the same time as the dairy block was added. The whole house was
raised and reroofed in the mid or late C17. It might be that the C17 house was a
Dartmoor longhouse but there is no actual evidence to prove this. The service end
was refurbished as a parlour end in the C18. House is 2 storeys throughout.
Exterior: irregular 5-window front of C20 casements, the oldest have glazing bars
and the latest is PVC. The front passage doorway is left of centre and now contains
a C20 part-glazed door. Roof is hipped to left and gable-ended to right. There is
a doorway in the right end wall from the terrace into the first floor room. On the
rear the fenestration is similar to the front except for a replacement horned 12-
paned sash to the C18 parlour.
Interior: there are only C17 soffit-chamfered and step-stopped half beams in the
passage but these have been reset since the original lower level of the ceiling is
indicated by the redundant joist ledge on the back of the hall fireplace. In the
hall the fireplace is blocked but some of its ovolo-moulded oak lintel can be felt
inside a cupboard there. There is evidence for upper and lower end jetties. The
hall crossbeams are mid C17, moulded with bar-step stops. The upper end crosswall
is clad but said to be an oak plank-and-muntin screen. Doorway to dairy block in
rear wall is the original; a plain oak frame containing a plank door with applied
12-panel front and strap hinges. Both inner room and dairy have soffit-chamfered
and step-stopped crossbeams. Inner room fireplace is blocked. The newel stair is
unusual for this part of Devon; it rises round a circular timber post. The service
end room shows only C18 detail. The parlour has a box cornice and, in the front
wall, a curved back crockery cupboard flanked by Ionic pilasters with a dentil
cornice on the entablature. Fireplace here is blocked. Several 2-fielded panel
doors throughout the house are probably C18. Roof is inaccessible but the bases of
straight principals show suggesting C17 (maybe C18) A-frame trusses.


Listing NGR: SX7194391702

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

94872

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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