Little Ullcombe Farmhouse

Details

UPOTTERY ST 20 NW 7/105 Little Ullcombe Farmhouse - - II Farmhouse, now 2 cottages. Mid C16 with major late C16 and C17 improvements, some C19 extensions, renovated circa 1980. Plastered local stone and flint rubble, maybe with some cob; stone rubble stacks topped with C20 brick; thatch roof. Plan: 2 adjoining cottages made by subdividing a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house and bringing into domestic use C19 agricultural outbuildings each end. The building faces south-east and is built on level ground. The left (south-west) cottage has a 3-room plan. At the left end a former small barn has been converted to domestic use. Next to it is the former end room of the house; it is an unheated inner room which is now used as a kitchen but was originally a dairy or buttery. The third room of this cottage is the former hall with an axial stack backing onto the former pasage which is now in the right cottage. This right cottage occupies the passage, the former service end kitchen with an axial stack (formerly a gable- end stack) backing onto a former agricultural outbuilding which has now been converted to domestic use. The original 3-room-and-through-passage section has mid C16 origins. The roof timbers are apparently clean and therefore it would seem that the house was built with the hall stack. It was presumably part-floored at the beginning; the hall at least was open to the roof but the chamber over the dairy/buttery is considered an original feature even though it jetties into the upper end of the hall. The service end was refurbished as a kitchen in the early or mid C17, probably at the same time as the hall was floored over. Farmhouse is 2 storeys. Exterior: irregular 4-window front of C20 casements with glazing bars including a dormer window over the passage. The passage front doorway is roughly central and there is another doorway immediately to right; both contain C19 plank doors. A third front doorway has been inserted further left (into the former inner room) and it has a C20 door behind a contemporary porch. The roof is gable-ended and has uneven eaves lines and is brought down as a pent roof on plain timber posts in front of the right cottage. Interior: the former inner room has no main beam but most of the large scantling axial joists are original and are cantilevered over the inner room/hall partition to carry the jettied chamber over. The partition is a large-framed screen. The hall too has no crossbeam. The large hall fireplace is limestone ashlar with oak lintel and chamfered surround. The former service end kitchen ceiling was renewed circa 1950 but the C17 fireplace remains; it is stone rubble with an oak-framed front and had an oven. The roof is carried on side-pegged jointed crucks with cambered collars and includes a hip cruck with the remains of a gavel-fork arrangement at the inner room end. The roofspace is inaccessible but the owner (who undertook the circa 1980 renovation himself) is sure tnat the timbers were not smoke-blackened.

Listing NGR: ST2105509739

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

86660

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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