The Longhouse

Details

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ST 00 SE
2/126

PLYMTREE
The Longhouse

(Formerly listed as Lower Weaver Farmhouse)

GV
II

Farmhouse. Early C17, some early C18 modernisation, renovated circa 1980. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stacks topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof, tile roof to outshot.

Plan: Three-room-and -through-passage plan house facing west and built down the hillslope. Uphill at the rignt (south) end is a large room (the hall or parlour) with an axial stack backing onto the passage. The stack also serves the principal chamber above. The other side of the passage is a kitchen and its axial stack backs onto the dairy or buttery, the left end room. There is a two-storey porch to the rear of the passage. It was probably added as part of the early C18 refurbishment. At about the same time the hay loft was inserted over the dairy end chamber. In the C20 an C18 or C19 outshot to rear of the hall/parlour was converted to a kitchen. The porch suggests that the east side was originally the front. However the west must have become the main front by the time the rear outshot was built. The house is two storeys.

Exterior: irregular five-window front of windows of various dates and sizes. Two of the first floor windows and both end ground floor windows are original; they are oak-framed with ovolo-moulded mullions. Another first floor window is missing its mullion and another is a C19 casement. The rest date from circa 1980 and they are C17 in style. The passage front doorway is a little right of centre and it contains a circa 1980 plank door. There is a secondary doorway to left into the former dairy. The roof is half-hipped each end. The left (north) end has a window to each floor. The ground and first floor windows are original though missing some mullions; the former has chamfered mullions and the first floor one has ovolo-moulded mullions and has internal wooden shutters. There is a blocked shuttered window to the loft. The porch at the back has a C20 door in its outer arch.

Interior: is well-preserved and most of the structural detail is early C17.

The hall/parlour is the best room in the house. Its three-bay ceiling is carried on crossbeams with chamfer-ovolo mouldings and scroll stops. The fireplace here has Beer-stone ashlar jambs and an oak lintel and it has an ovolo-moulded surround. There is a smaller, plainer version on the first floor over.

The lower (former kitchen) side of the passage is lined with an oak plank-and-muntin screen which contains a blocked crank-headed doorway. Also the passage rear door frame is original; an oak frame with cambered head and chamfered surround. The kitchen crossbeams are plain-chamfered (maybe the stops have been knocked off). The fireplace here is a plainer version of that in the hall/parlour and has a chamfered oak lintel. The fireplace was reduced in size when a doorway was knocked through its right-hand side. The construction of the doorway also involved blocking the side oven.

The dairy has two axial chamfered and scroll-stopped crossbeams. The main block roof is carried on a series of clean side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. The truss over the dairy end was originally closed dividing the chamber into two small rooms. In the early C18 this was removed and a loft was inserted. The floor has been removed but the chamfered axial beam remains there. The other early C18 features are the porch where no carpentry detail is exposed; and a cupboard in the hall/parlour chamber; it has a curving back, shaped shelves and panelled doors on H-hinges. This chamber has been divided into two.

This is an attractive and remarkably well-preserved single phase early C17 farmhouse and forms a group with its close neighbour, Middle Weaver Farmhouse (q.v).

Listing NGR: ST0441803875

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

86882

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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