Curzeland Farmhouse

Details

BURRINGTON SS 61 NW

5/7 Curzeland Farmhouse - - II Farmhouse. Circa late C15 or early C16, heavily remodelled in C17, with C19 and C20 alterations. Rendered stone rubble and cob. Left end wall unrendered stone rubble. Asbestos slate roof, half-hipped at right end, hipped to left end. Lateral rear stack, rebuilt in brick in C20. Stone rubble stack with tapered cap and slated bread oven projection at left end. The house consists of a 3-room and cross-passage plan, the passage containing the staircase, the usual alignment being reversed, however, with the hall and inner room to the right of, and at low level to the cross-passage. The plan appears to result from the late C17 remodelling of a former open hall house of some stature, of which an imposing and heavily smoke-blackened arch and wind-braced roof of 2 bays and part of a richly moulded screen survives. The concentration of these early features at the upper (left) end suggests the house-plan was 'turned round' in the C17, the lower end being partitioned to form a hall, heated by the rear lateral stack, and unheated inner room at right end. The original hall, however appears to have been sited to the left of the passage, and the fragment of the screen which survives, if in situ, would have formed a low partition between the hall and passage. The ceiling of the left end room is considerably higher than those of the lower end rooms and the high scroll-stopped bressumer may indicate an early C17 phase when the original hall was floored over. The left end wall of the house is entirely of stone rubble, and the external evidence would suggest that the house originally extended further to the left, this part presumably being demolished when the hall was resited to the right of the passage. 2 storeys. 3-window range; late C19/early C20 fenestration. From left end 2-light casement 2 panes per light, 2 light casement 6 panes per light, and 3-light casement 2 panes per light. Ground floor has 2-light casement 3 panes per light to left and 3-light casement 6 panes per light to right of plank door with timber canopy supported on shaped brackets. Dairy and service outshuts to rear. Interior The fragment of the C15 screen that survives consists of an extremely richly moulded headrail circa 2 metres in length, the moulding carried down the muntins at each end, the rear end being set against the rear wall, the front end bedded in the axial partition blocking the cross passage. 3 mortices survive for 3 similar muntins between the 2 end ones, which are grooved for planks but these do not survive. Set in front of this screen on its left (upper side) is a partition rising to the high scroll-stopped bresumer, which though boarded over in the C20, may well conceal a C17 plank partition. The hall to the right of the passage has a plain chamfered cross ceiling beam and fireplace lintel, with an unchamfered half bressumer supporting the joists in the right end room. Set in the front wall of the hall is a late C17 fielded panelled cupboard door with original hinges and unusually a separate drawer of similar date immediately below it. The roof structure over the hall and inner room is C19 with pegged trusses, but over the left end room and cross-passage are 2 fine C15 arch-braced raised cruck trusses of impressively wide span, with cranked collars and 3 tiers of threaded purlins, the 2 lower tiers formerly with windbraces only 2 of which survive on the rear side, lower tier. The diagonally set ridge is also threaded. The truss at the upper end is thoroughly smoke-blackened, but the lower face of the truss over the passage is relatively clean; the purlins at both ends however, have been sawn off, a hip having been introduced at the upper end, so that the original extent of the medieval open hall house is uncertain. Curzeland Farmhouse was clearly a dwelling of some importance in the late medieval period; the roof structure is a scaled-up version of, but in other respects bears close similarities, to that at East Aylescott Farmhouse, Burrington (q.v.).

Listing NGR: SS6315415996

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

97137

Legacy System:

LBS

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