Greenways Farmhouse

Details

COTLEIGH HOLMSLEIGH GREEN ST 20 SW 11/14 Greenways Farmhouse - - II

Farmhouse. Early C16 with later C16 and C17 improvements; somewhat altered by major C19 and C20 refurbishments and modernisations. Local stone and flint rubble; stone rubble stacks, one with a stone rubble chimneyshaft, the others topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof, some replaced with slate to rear. Plan and development: house with an irregular plan which is built on essentially level ground. The main block faces south-west and has a 3-room plan. At the left (north-west) end is a study/office with a projecting front lateral stack. Large central room has an axial stack backing onto the narrower right end room (the present kitcnen/dining room). 2-storey outshots to rear of central and left rooms and these include the main stair behind the study/office. The main entrance is now in the left end into the stair hall. There is another entrance on the front into the middle of the centre room and it has a porch. A 1-room plan block projects at right angles in front of the right room. The layout is essentially the result of C19 and C20 refurbishments. The historic core is the left and centre rooms of the main block. Originally this had a 3-room- and-through-passage plan. The left room (the study/office) was the inner room. The large centre room has been made by removing both passage partitions and uniting hall, passage, and service end kitchen. A disused rear lateral stack once heated the hall. Much of the early carpentry detail has been removed but one early C16 roof truss remains proving that much, if not at all, the original house was open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The process by which the chimneystacks and floors were added in not clear due to the amount of later rebuilding. However it seems that the service end was rebuilt as a kitchen in the early or mid C17. The front wing and right end room were built in the C19 as service rooms and agricultural outbuildings and both were much rebuilt when they were brought into domestic use in the C20. The rear outshots too are probably C19 and much rebuilt in the C20. The house is 2 storeys throughout. Exterior: irregular 3:1:1 - window front of C20 casements with glazing bars and similar windows around the other sides. The former passage front doorway is left of centre and lies behind a C20 gabled porch containing a contemporary glazed door. The present doorway in the left end contains a C20 door and thatch-roofed porch on plain posts. The roofs have half-hipped ends. Interior: is largely the result of C19 and C20 modernisations and most of the exposed carpentry dates from these later building phases. Nevertheless the original layout can still be appreciated and some older carpentry may be still hidden. The hall fireplace is blocked and the former inner room (study/office) fireplace appears to be a C19 rebuild. However there is still the C17 large kitchen fireplace; stone rubble with oak-framed front and it contains a large oven. Across the chimneybreast is a contemporary chamfered and step-stopped half beam. Above the kitchen there survives the remains of an early C16 side-pegged jointed cruck truss. This truss along with the purlins, common rafters and underside of the original thatch in the bays each side is smoke-blackened from the original hearth fire. In the front wing there is a reused early C17 moulded beam.

Listing NGR: ST2047002915

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

86569

Legacy System:

LBS

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