Higher Horselake Farmhouse

Details

SX 78 NW CHAGFORD

4/29 Higher Horselake Farmhouse 22.2.67 GV II* Farmhouse. Late C15-early C16, improved in later C16 and C17 with a mid C17 extension, modernised in 1982. Granite stone rubble laid to rough courses with large roughly-dressed quoins; granite stacks with their original granite ashlar chimney shafts; thatch roof, corrugated iron to outshots. Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house built across a hillslope and the rear is terraced into it. It faces north-east with a small unheated service room at the left (south-eastern) end. The hall has a large axial stack backing onto the passage. Projecting rear newel turret at lower end of hall. Inner room parlour at right (north-western) end has an end stack with newel stair rising alongside the fireplace. In fact the house began as a 2-room-and-through- passage plan house, open to the roof from end to end and heated by an open hearth fire. Through the later C16 and C17 the hall fireplace was inserted and the house progressively floored. In the mid C17, probably at the same time the hall was floored, the parlour was added. It is now 2 storeys throughout with secondary outshots across the rear. Exterior: irregular 4-window front of C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars, those on the first floor rising into the eaves. The front passage doorway is set left of centre in a segmental-headed arch. The oak doorframe is probably C17 but is mostly covered over. The door itself is also probably C17; a plank door with strap hinges and oak lock housing. Secondary doorway to inner room at right end contains C19 plank door. The straight join shows between the original house and the C17 parlour extension. Roof is half-hipped to left and gable-ended to right. Interior: the oldest feature in the house is the late C15 - early C16 roof structure over the original part of the house (the hall, passage and service room). It is 3 bays and constructed of timbers of unusually large scantling. The left of the 2 trusses is completely exposed. The front principal is a raised true cruck and the rear principal is a raised face-pegged jointed cruck. The lower sections of the right (hall) truss are plastered over although the curving shape indicates similar cruck constructions. Both have cambered collars and, at their apex, a yoke carrying a square set ridge (Alcock's apex type H). There is a hip cruck at the service end and single sets of trenched purlins. The whole structure is thoroughly smoke- blackened indicating that the original house was open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. The hall stack was probably inserted in the late C16-early C17. It contains a large granite fireplace with a plain oak lintel. The hall crossbeam is now boxed in and no carpentry detail is exposed in the passage or service room. The parlour extension is wholly mid C17. At the upper end of the hall is an oak plank-and-muntin screen of this date but only exposed on the parlour side; the muntins are chamfered with scroll-nick stops and each has a central vertical recessed strip. The granite fireplace has an ovolo-moulded and runout stopped oak lintel and an inserted C19 oven. The crossbeam here is also boxed in. This parlour end has a 2-bay roof carried on a clean A-frame truss with pegged lap-jointed collar. An important and attractive Dartmoor farmhouse with its late medieval roof virtually complete. It also forms part of a group with its associated farmbuildings which are also listed. Source: manuscript notes, photographs and measured ground floor plan by Eric Mercer and S Collier dated 1976 in NMR.

Listing NGR: SX7196686530

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

94560

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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