WITHERHILL FARMHOUSE AND ADJOINING FRONT GARDEN WALLS

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Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1146976
Date first listed:: 16-Feb-1989
List Entry Name:: WITHERHILL FARMHOUSE AND ADJOINING FRONT GARDEN WALLS
Statutory Address:: WITHERHILL FARMHOUSE AND ADJOINING FRONT GARDEN WALLS

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Date:: 2004-08-19
Reference:: IOE01/12637/18
Rights:: © Dr Ann Allen. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1146976
Date first listed:: 16-Feb-1989
List Entry Name:: WITHERHILL FARMHOUSE AND ADJOINING FRONT GARDEN WALLS
Statutory Address 1:: WITHERHILL FARMHOUSE AND ADJOINING FRONT GARDEN WALLS

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: WITHERHILL FARMHOUSE AND ADJOINING FRONT GARDEN WALLS

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Devon
District:: Torridge (District Authority)
Parish:: High Bickington
National Grid Reference:: SS6132020498

Details

HIGH BICKINGTON SS 62 SW 5/90 Witherhill Farmhouse and adjoining - front garden walls

GV II

Farmhouse and adjoining garden walls. Late C15 or early C16 house, altered probably in the late C16 and further altered and enlarged (possibly partly rebuilt) in the early C17. Further late C19 alterations and additions. Rendered cob on stone rubble plinth. C17 addition with coursed stone rubble ground floor and renderd cob first floor. Internal cob dividing walls. Welsh-slate roof, gable-ended to right and hipped to left (probably formerly thatched). Stone rubble lateral stacks (hall stack with brick top stage) and late C19 red brick end stack. C19 stone rubble addition at rear with red brick dressings and brick end stack. C19 stone porch with lean-to slate roof. Snecked dressed stone garden walls with red-brick dressings. Plan and development: Three-room and through-passage plan, facing south-west (ground falls to left). Outshut at rear of left-hand end. The late Medieval house probably only consisted of the hall with through passage to its left, both open to the roof and heated by an open hearth, and the service room to the left of the passage, probably with a first floor but unheated. The open hall was partly floored in the late C16 with the insertion of a first-floor chamber over the passage and jettied into the left-hand half of the hall. The new chamber appears to have been open to the roof (see smoke blackening on the left-hand side of the stud partition). The hall was eventually completely floored probably in the early C17 when the external lateral stack was inserted to the front. The right-hand end room with external lateral stack to the front was probably also added in the early C17, although it might have replaced a former smaller unheated inner room. Right-hand end room formerly had a front entrance (see blocked doorway). Late C19 outshut at rear of service end, passage and left-hand end of hall, with kitchen and scullery, and with integral end stack to left. The former service room to the left of the passage was probably divided into the dairy and probable pantry at the same time. Brick integral end stack, possibly a rebuilding of a C17 stack but also possibly a late C19 addition (left-hand ground floor rooms remain unheated). Late C19 staircase inserted in the rear of the hall, rising from the rear of the through passage. Further late C19 additions included the shallow front porch and the walls enclosing the front garden. Two storeys with one-storey outshut. Exterior: Pair of large tapered external lateral stacks to front with weatherings and chamfered offsets (right-hand stack truncated). Asymmetrically-fenestrated front, with mid to late C19 two and 3-light wooden casements. Recess to right of hall window, evidence of former doorway (see inside). Ground-floor C19 two-light wooden casement to left (lighting probable pantry) with wrought-iron bars and internal plank shutters. Small opening to its right with plank hatch door. Passage doorway to left of hall stack with C19 boarded door, chamfered wooden frame (possibly old) with stepped stops, and shallow lean-to slate-roofed porch with wooden bench to left-hand side. First-floor small 2-light C19 wooden casement in right-hand gable end. Ground-floor small 2-light C19 wooden window in left-hand end wall (lighting dairy) with wooden lintel, wrought-iron bars and internal boarded wooden shutters. Outshut to rear has segmental-headed C19 three-light casement to right and 2-light casement to left. Lean-to bread oven in right-hand (north-west) end of outshut. Walled front-garden with low front wall curving round to the right-hand side and high wall to the left-hand side, adjoining the south-west corner of the house. Wide pathway to front door with low retaining walls each side and gateway in garden wall. Interior: Little altered since the late C19. Hall with plaster ceiling and cased cross beam (bresummer of former internal jetty). Beam appears to be chamfered and with later adze marks (just visible below the staircase where it is supported by a reused adzed blackened timber). C17 open fireplace in hall with stone jambs, wooden lintel with chamfer returning to jambs, probable former spy window to left and bread oven to right. Bench along right-hand and front walls with C19 matchboarded back. Round-arched cream hob and probably C17 cupboard with shelf and plain surround (but without door) also in right-hand wall. Steps up to doorway leading to right-hand room, with C17 wooden frame and old plank door. Right hand ground-floor room has C17 ceiling frame with large chamfered spine beam and large joists. C17 open fireplace with stone jambs, wooden lintel and bread oven. Blocked door to right of fireplace, with wooden lintel, and seats in front and rear windows. Through passage with tiled floor. Inserted C19 staircase rising from the rear of the passage along the back of the hall, with closed matchboarded sides and stick balusters to landing. Apparently C19 stud wall between hall and passage but possibly incorporating remains of old plank and muntin screen. Left-hand ground-floor (service) room divided axially by C19 plank partition. Dairy to rear with stone floor, low wooden shelf (or bench) along end wall and window in end wall with seat and internal boarded shutter to one light. C19 kitchen in outshut at rear of left-hand end, with L-shaped wooden bench and fireplace with bread oven and cupboard to right. Former C19 scullery (present kitchen) to rear of left-hand end of hall, with old lead water pump. C19 plank doors throughout with beaded wooden frames. First-floor rooms with old floor-boards, and with step in line of former jetty. Well-preserved smoke-blackened late-Medieval 2-bay roof over hall and through passage. Roughly central truss over hall (probably raised or jointed crucks) with mortice and tenoned cranked collar, mortice and tenoned apex, trenched purlin and diagonally-set ridge-piece. Smoke-blackened rafters too. The truss is in line with the later inserted internal jetty and the top of the partition of the inserted hall chamber is visible in the roofspace, smoke-blackened on both sides. The foot of a cruck blade is visible in a front bedroom. Also visible is a later probable tie-beam (obscured by wallpaper at time of survey - December 1987), probably associated with the partition of the inserted hall chamber. Full-height cob partition walls rising into roof-space (right-hand one probably former end wall), between hall and right- hand room and between passage and service rooms to left. Evidence of smoke- blackening on hall sides of partitions in attic, now obscured by later whitewash. Hall ridge-piece supported on smoke-blackened post with V-shaped notch, set in cob partition. C17 two-bay roof over right-hand (upper) end room has central truss consisting of straight principals with notched pegged apex, double-notched halved cambered collar, pairs of trenched purlins and diagonally-set ridge-piece. Roof over the left-hand (lower) end room(s) apparently rebuilt in the late C19. This house is a notably complete example of a Medieval Devon farmhouse and has been little altered since the late C19. It forms part of a complete farmstead group, also including cartshed and trap house (q.v.), linhay (q.v.), barn (q.v.) and stable (q.v.).

Listing NGR: SS6132020498

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 91705
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.