West Fursham Farmhouse Including Garden Walls Adjoining to South-east

Details

SX 79 SW DREWSTEIGNTON

5/78 West Fursham Farmhouse including garden walls adjoining to south- east GV II*

House, former farmhouse. Mid C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, south- west end rebuilt after collapse circa 1930, modernised circa 1970. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stacks (one rebuilt in brick circa 1930) topped with C20 brick; thatch roof, slate to outshots. Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house built across the hillslope facing south-east. Small inner room at left (south-western) end with projecting end stack. Hall has large axial stack backing onto the passage and large service end room with end kitchen stack and winder stair rising alongside. Orignally only the inner room was floored. The small ground floor room here was probably a dairy and probably had no fireplace before circa 1930. The rest of the house was open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. The hall fireplace was inserted probably in the late C16, at the same time that a first floor chamber built over the passage. The service end room was floored and converted to a kitchen probably in the late C16 - early C17. The hall was floored in the mid C17. It is not clear where the early main stair was; the present stair is C20. 2 storeys with secondary outshots across the rear. Exterior: irregular 3-window front of C20 casements, the oldest with glazing bars and latest (including those on left end) with leaded-glass. The front passage doorway is right of centre and contains a C20 panelled door behind a contemporary thatch-roofed porch on timber posts. Roof is gable-ended. Good interior: in the passage, on the back of the probably late C16 hall fireplace, there is an unusual timber joist ledge supported on oak corbels. The hall fireplace itself has been lined with C20 brick but is granite ashlar with a chamfered surround. The passage chamber jetties into the hall flush with the face of the stack. The mid C17 hall ceiling is a particularly fine example. The crossbeams have broad ovolo mouldings with some surviving keeled step stops and the exposed joists are ovolo-moulded with bar-runout stops. The upper end partition is probably original, maybe an oak plank-and-muntin screen, but is plastered over and no carpentry shows in the inner room. On the lower side of the passage the partition is also plastered over. The service end kitchen has a late C16-early C17 3-bay ceiling; the inner crossbeam has plain soffit chamfers and the outer one is soffit- chamfered with step stops. The large kitchen fireplace is granite with a soffit- Chamfered and step-stopped oak lintel. To right an oak winder stair rises over the oven housing. To left is a cream oven alcove. The original full height crosswall is exposed only in the roofspace. It is large- framed. Over the inner room the roof is clean and the original couples of common rafters survive. The rest of the roof structure, including the common rafters and underside of the thatch, is smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire. It is carried on large side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with cambered collars and butt purlins. A strip of garden across the front of the farmhouse forms a terrace which is revetted and bounded by a C19 low stone rubble wall. This is an interesting multi-phase Devon farmhouse, its late medieval roof intact. The later features are of high quality craftsmanship, particularly the mid C17 hall ceiling. Other features are probably hidden by later plaster, e.g. the framing of the upper hall crosswall.

Listing NGR: SX7150793488

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

94873

Legacy System:

LBS

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