Spencer Cottage

Details

COLEBROOKE COLEFORD SS 70 SE 3/124 Spencer Cottage (formerly listed 26.8.65 as Nos 1 and 2 Spencers Cottage)

GV II*

House. Early C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, modernised between 1975-85. Main house of plastered cob on rubble footings, timber-framed porch; stone rubble stacks topped with C20 brick; thatch roof. 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing east with inner room at right (northern) end. 2 storey porch to front of passage. C17 kitchen and service block at right angles to rear of hall. End stack to inner room projecting rear lateral stacks to hall and service room and axial stack to kitchen. Now 2 storeys throughout. Irregular 4-window front of C19 and C20 replacement casements with glazing bars, and one late C19 3-light horizontal-sliding sash to chamber over hall (to right of porch). Left of centre is front passage doorway. It contains early C16 oak 2- centred arch doorway which is now hidden externally by C20 boarding. The early C16 2-storey gabled porch is timber-framed. The first floor room rests on front and rear pairs of massive oak posts with jowled heads shaped to create inner and outer shoulder-headed arches, the latter with an external hollow-chamfered surround. The sides were originally open but now there is a low wall on the right side and left side, is completely filled with C19 brick. The front of the first floor room is jettied forward over the outer arch and now carried on C19 brackets. The original large forward ; exposed only on the right side where a pair of curving tension braces lap over upright studs. In the centre the original window frame now contains a C19 casement. It has chamfered reveals and the arrangement of pegs around show that: the original window was of 2 lights with arched or traceried heads. The main roof is gable-ended with the front eaves level dropping towards right end, from hall, to inner room. Rear elevation has C20 rebuilt rear passage. The inner (south-facing) side of kitchen and service block includes a C17 oak 3-light window with one surviving ovolo-moulded mullion to first floor rear and also 2 bee-boles. Rear section of this wing now has corrugated iron roof. Interior shows work of several periods. As far as can be seen house was originally part-floored. On lower side of passage is a full height crosswall of cob and rubble, partly rebuilt with C20 concrete blocks. The passage-hall partition is C20, a replacement of the original low partition, an oak plank-and-muntin screen. At the upper end of the hall is a full height large-framed crosswall closing a side-pegged jointed cruck roof truss. Here the rails are mortised, tenoned and pegged into tie cruck posts which descend to ground level. The lower level had an oak plank-and-muntin screen of which only the lead beam now remains. The hall side of the truss is sooted indicating that the hall was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire of the original hall roof only the ridge purl in remains. It is supported and established in a partly-collapsed position by an early Hall side-pegged upper jointed cruck truss with a dovetail lap-jointed collar. Hall has late of - early C17 fireplace built of stone rubble including many squared blocks of volcanic stone. It has a C20 replacement timber lintel, an C18 inserted cloam oven and a heath of unpended states. Hall was floored in early C17 with an axial beam and half-beams, all with double-ovolo mouldings with runout stops. Inner room floored with joists only and includes a probably C18 stone rubble fireplace with a plain oak lintel resting on oak pads. In the service room there is a plain chamfered axial bean resting on posts with jowled neads and a half bean which is soffit-chamfored with step stops (probably C16). The stone rubble fireplace here has soffit-chamfered lintel and is probably C17. The porch has its original 2-bay roof carried on a tie-beam truss supported on posts with jowled neads. Kitchen and service wing shows C17 carpentry details. Coleford is a remarkably unspoilt and picturesque hamlet in which Spencer Cottage occupies an important visual position, The house is also notable in its own right. The porch, for instance, is not only a rare and well-preserved rural example of timber framing in Devon but is also as early as the earliest surviving timber- framed buildings in the Devon towns.

Listing NGR: SS7718801086

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

436080

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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