West Pitt Farmhouse

Details

SAMFORD PEVERELL ST 01 NW 4/139 West Pitt Farmhouse - - II

Farmhouse. Early C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, modernised and partly rebuilt in the late C19. Plastered stone rubble with sections of cob in the main block and brick dressings in the late C19 crosswing; stone rubble stacks topped with C20 brick and 2 Hamstone ashlar chimneyshafts on the crosswing; slate roof, formerly thatch on the main block. Plan and development: T-plan house. The main block faces south-east and is built across the hillslope. It contains the historic core of the house. It has an inner room end former kitchen at the left (south-west) end which has a large gable-end stack. Between it and the hall there is a small unheated inner room which was probably a dairy but is now a secondary entrance lobby. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the site of the former passage, now a crosswing. The original passage and service end room was rebuilt in the late C19 as a 2-room plan crosswing projecting front and back. Though rebuilt the passage has been retained and extended forward. It contains the late C19 main stair rising along the back of the hall stack. The front room of the crosswing is a parlour with an outer lateral stack, (the bed chamber above has a front gable-end stack). The rear room is a kitchen with a rear gable-end stack. The original house was a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house. The passage and service end room to right have been replaced by the late C19 crosswing but the hall and small inner room remain. The smoke-blackened roof over this section indicate that original house was open to the roof from end to end, divided by low partitions (the upper hall screen was one such) and heated by an open hearth fire. In the mid C16 a chamber was built over the inner room and it jettied into the open hall. Later, probably the late C16, the hall stack was inserted, and the hall was floored over in the mid C17. At the same time a kitchen was added at the inner room end. This was disused when a new kitchen was provided in the late C19 crosswing. The farmhouse is 2 storeys with cellar under the crosswing parlour. Exterior: irregular 4:2-window front. The 4-window section of the main block is made up of C20 casements, most of them iron-framed and without glazing bars. The secondary front doorway, into the former inner room, is late C19. The front gable- end of the crosswing has 16-pane sashes to right and to left a first floor 12-pane sash over the passage front doorway which contains a late C19 door. Both roofs are gable-ended. Interior: the historic structure is confined to the main block. In the former hall the fireplace is blocked but its soffit-chamfered oak lintel can be felt in a cupboard. At the upper end of the hall is an oak plank-and-muntin screen, probably an original low partition. Directly above it is the evidence of the jetty from the mid C16 inner room chamber. The mid C17 crossbeams have deep soffit-chamfers with bar-runout stops. No carpentry shows in the narrow inner room but the mid C17 kitchen crossbeams are identical to those in the hall. The large stone rubble kitchen fireplace has a plain oak lintel and its oven is relined with brick. The alcove to left is the site either of a walk-in curing chamber or a newel staircase. The 2-bay roof over the former hall and inner room is carried on an early C16 side- Pegged jointed cruck truss. It and the ridge which extends over the inner room is smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire. The mid C16 oak-framed crosswall, built when the inner room chamber was built, is clean on the chamber side and smoke- blackened on the hall side. The rest of the roof structure was replaced in the C20. This is a typical multi-phase Devon farmhouse.

Listing NGR: ST0326816015

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

95988

Legacy System:

LBS

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