Westacombe Cottage

Summary

A C17 house with C19 and C20 additions to the rear.

Reasons for Designation

Westacombe Cottage, Heaton Punchardon is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
*Architectural interest: it demonstrates well the use of local materials and building tradition, with added interesting architectural embellishments;
*Historic interest: the C17 house retains a significant proportion of original building fabric;
* Legibility: the original form of the main range and the later phases are clearly legible;
*Group value: with a number of nearby listed buildings including the C16 Eastacombe Farmhouse (Grade II).

History

Westacombe Cottage was built in the C17 as a three-room, through-passage house. It appears on the Heanton Punchardon Tithe Map (circa 1840) as a long range running parallel to the road. In the later half of the C19 a single-storey rear wing was added. A second storey was added to part of this rear wing in the mid-C20. A further extension was added to the main rear elevation in the late C20. A number of the internal features, recorded as surviving in the late C20, have since been removed including the C17 carved acanthus-decorated panels flanking one of the fireplaces, a low stone hall fireplace with four-centred arch, and panelling on the walls of one of the ground-floor rooms (the panelling was said to come from a house in Bideford). The front elevation windows were replaced with early C21 replica frames.

Details

A C17 house with C19 and C20 additions to the rear.

MATERIALS: whitewashed and rendered rubble-stone and cob walls, thatch roof, and brick gable-end and lateral off-centre stacks.

PLAN: the original three-room building runs east-to-west, with a later rear wing at a right angle to the north.

EXTERIOR: the gable-ended cottage is two storeys with a pitched thatch roof. The front elevation is flanked by tile-topped buttress walls and has four bays with ground and first floor two-light, three-paned windows, with the exception of a single-light first-floor window at the west end. The off-centre plank door is covered by a thatch canopy supported by slender chamfered posts. The west elevation has a pair of timber French windows. The east elevation has a first-floor Gothic-style, pointed-arched window and a large projecting chimney. To the rear is the two-storey, pitched roof cross wing with a cat-slide single-storey addition. A later single-storey lean to has been added to the centre of the rear range and includes a set of French windows. At the west end of the elevation, the original rear wall is visible and has a two-light, three-paned window.

INTERIOR: the ground floor has been subject to refurbishment in the late C20/ early C21. The fire surrounds in the main range are modern replacements. The fragment of timber panelling with linenfold detailing beneath the window in the central room appears to be a C19 /early C20 copy. On the ground floor of the rear wing is a fireplace with a bread oven and a timber bressemer. Some of the C17 joinery survives including the winder-stair treads and square newel post (the panelling is a modern addition that replaces an earlier banister), some of the door frames and chamfered ceiling beams. The west end, first-floor bedroom has a plaster cornice with a double band of intertwined foliated design on three sides. The collar-beam roof survives well, including the timber-pegged principal trusses which have undergone some re-engineering, particularly at the bases.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

98429

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Other
Heanton Punchardon Tithe Map (Circa 1840)

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