East Fingle Farmhouse

Details

SX 79 SW DREWSTEIGNTON

5/37 East Fingle Farmhouse


II

Farmhouse. Mid or late C16 (maybe earlier) with C17 improvements, modernised in the
late C19. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stacks topped with
plastered C20 brick; corrugated iron roof over the original thatch.
Plan and development: long 4-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south and
built across the hillslope. Service end kitchen at the right (east) has large
gable-end stack. The hall has a large axial stack backing onto the passage. Beyond
the upper end of the hall a small unheated room (probably a dairy) was converted to
an entrance hall with the main stair in the C19. The right (west) end parlour has a
gable-end stack. There was apparently a fifth room of unknown function at this end
but it was demolished in the early C20. Since the-roof was inaccessible at the time
of'this survey it is not possible to establish the original layout of the house
here. Nevertheless it is obvious that the C16 house was some form of open hall
house, maybe heated by an open hearth fire. The present plan is the result of its
evolution up to the mid or late C17. The hall fireplace is probably late C16 -early
C17 and the hall was floored over in the early or mid C17. The service end room was
rebuilt as a kitchen in the mid C17 and the parlour was rebuilt or new built as an
extension in the mid or late C17. Secondary outshots to rear have now been brought
into domestic use . House is 2 storeys.
Exterior: regular but not symmetrical 6-window front of C20 casements without
glazing bars. The front passage doorway is right of centre and the doorway left of
centre is that inserted into the former dairy. Both now contain C20 doors, the
latter with a C20 slate-roofed porch. Roof is gable-ended.
Interior: good mid C17 oak doorframe from passage to kitchen; it is ovolo-moulded
with chamfer-step stops enriched with simple carving. The large kitchen crossbeam
is roughly-finished. The fireplace has been reduced in size. It has a soffit-
chamfered oak lintel of massive scantling which formerly extended across the alcove
to right of the fireplace. This was a walk-in curing chamber and the farmer reports
sooted cob under the plaster there. The large hall fireplace is granite with a
soffit-chamfered and step-stopped oak lintel, the same finish given to one of the 2
crossbeams here (the other is a late C19 or C20 replacement) and a half beam in the
passage. The parlour crossbeam is clad with mid or late C17 plaster and includes a
broad ogee-moulded cornice. The fireplace here is blocked by a C20 grate. The roof
is inaccessible but the shape of a probably C16 jointed or true cruck truss shows
over the hall. Over the former dairy and parlour straight principals show
suggesting that this section of roof was replaced in the C17 by A-frame trusses.
Much of the early structure of this multi-phrase Devon farmhouse is probably hidden
by later plaster, some of it C17 plaster.


Listing NGR: SX7435891453

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

94833

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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