TORHILL FARMHOUSE

Overview

Location

Details

SX 79 SW DREWSTEIGNTON

5/67 Torhill Farmhouse

II

Farmhouse. Early C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, modernised in early C19 and again circa 1965. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone stacks topped with plastered C19 and C20 brick top-; thatch roof, corrugated iron and asbestos to the outshots. Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing east and built across a gentle hillslope. A small inner room at the right (northern) end has a projecting end stack. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage and a front projecting window bay. The service end room has an end kitchen stack. Stair in turret projecting to rear of hall was rebuilt circa 1965. This is a house with a long and complex structural history. The early C16 house was mostly if not wholly open to the roof and it was then heated by an open hearth fire. At the time of this survey it was not possible to determine whether the inner room end roof was smoke- blackened. If not this end may have been floored from the beginning. Through the later C16 and C17 the stacks were inserted and the house progressively floored over. The inner room was refurbished as a parlour in the early C19. It may have been an unheated dairy before then although the stack looks more like a C17 build. 2 storey house with rebuilt outshots across the back. Exterior: Asymmetrical 3-window front of C20 casements with glazing bars. The hall window and the chamber window above are in a full height bay breaking forward a short distance. Front passage doorway is left of centre and now contains a C20 part-glazed door. Roof is gable-ended. Interior: contains work from all the main building phases. The passage rear doorway has a probably original oak round-headed doorframe. The service end room was rebuilt in the mid or late C17 as a kitchen. The axial beam is soffit-chamfered with straight cut stops, the same finish as the oak lintel of the granite fireplace. The large hall fireplace is late C16; granite ashlar with an oak lintel and chamfered surround. The hall was probably floored a little later and the axial beam is soffit-chamfered with step stops. The inner room parlour contains an early C19 cupboard with shaped shelves, glazed doors and eared architrave. The fireplace here is blocked by a C20 grate. The roof structure is the original. The 3 bays over hall, passage and inner room contains side-pegged jointed cruck trusses of large scantling and the whole structure, including common rafters and underside of the thatch is thoroughly smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire. The hall side of the oak-framed hall-inner room crosswall is also sooted but the roof over the inner room was not available for inspection at the time of this survey. This is a good multi-phase Devon farmhouse and some other C16 or C17 features are probably hidden behind later plaster.

Listing NGR: SX7081492221

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

94863

Legacy System:

LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.