East Pitt Farmhouse

Details

SAMPFORD PEVERELL ST 01 NW 4/135 - East Pitt Farmhouse 5.4.66 - II* Farmhouse. Late C15 - early C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, well- modernised circa 1986. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings with sections all of stone rubble; stone rubble stacks with stone rubble chimneyshafts extended with C20 brick; thatch roof. Plan and development: L-plan farmhouse. The main block faces north-east and is built across the hillslope. It has a 3-room-and-through-passage plan. At the right (north-western) end there is an unheated inner room, probably a dairy originally. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage. The service end kitchen has a large gable-end stack with what appears to be a large curing chamber projecting to rear. 1-room plan unheated extension projects at right angles in front of the inner room. The smoke-blackened roof over the hall and inner room indicates that the original house was open to the roof from end to end, divided by low partitions, and heated by an open hearth fire. The inner room was floored over in the mid C16. The hall fireplace was probably inserted in the late C16. The service end was rebuilt as a kitchen in the early or mid C17. At about the same time the hall was floored over. The date of the front extension is not clear. It is probably C17 but may be C16. This extension was originally domestic but it and the inner room have long been relegated to an agricultural store, maybe a cider house. Circa 1986 a stair turret was built projecting from the back of the passage. The hall and service end is 2 storeys. The inner room formerly was 2 storeys but is now open to the roof. The front block is also now open to the roof but was formerly 2 storeys. It has been much rebuilt and may once have been a parlour cross wing. Exterior: the main front has a not quite symmetrical 3-window front of various casements. To right of the door is a C20 casement with glazing bars. The rest are earlier, oak-framed, and contain rectangular panes of leaded glass. The oldest is first floor right, a 4-light window with chamfered mullions. The other 2 first floor windows are late C17 - early C18 with flat-faced mullions and the ground floor left 5-light window is probably C18. The passage front doorway is roughly central and contains a C20 door in traditional style at the top of a flight of stone steps up from the pitched cobble forecourt. The rear windows are all C20 but are oak- framed. The front of the wing is blind, but there is a C19 doorway with a tiny window alongside on the inner side. The main block is gable-ended to left and hipped to right. The front wing roof is hipped. Interior: on the upper (hall) side of the passage the screen beyond the back of the stack is missing. In the hall the large fireplace is stone rubble with soffit- chamfered oak lintel. The early C17 axial ceiling beams are soffit-chamfered with bar runout stops. At the upper end is the lower part of a full height oak large- framed full height crosswall in which the timbers are of large scantling. It includes a round-headed arch doorway converted from the original shoulder-headed arch. At the back the central king stud is fashioned to provide a ledge on which the axial beam of the former inner room ceiling rested. There is another full height oak large-framed crosswall between the inner room and front wing. On the lower side of the passage (to the former kitchen) a short length of an oak plank- and-muntin screen is exposed. In the former kitchen the crossbeam is soffit- chamfered with scroll stops. The kitchen fireplace is blocked although the oak lintel and a large brick-lined oven can be seen in a cupboard. The curing chamber is completely blocked up although there seems to have been an external doorway into it.. The inside is whitewashed and it seems that it was once converted to newel stair. The roof over the former kitchen is a C17 replacement carried on A-frame trusses with pegged and spiked lap-jointed collars. However the original roof remains over the hall with its ridge and purlins projecting over the inner room. The open truss is a side-pegged jointed cruck truss of large scantling. It has a cranked collar, the soffit of which is chamfered with a carved boss. Some of the single set of windbraces still remain. This roof structure is smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire. The secondary framing at the upper end of the hall is sooted on the hall side only proving that it was erected before the hall fireplace was inserted. East Pitt is a well-preserved and attractive example of a multi-phase Devon farmhouse. The quality of the original work is superior to the usual farmhouse standard of the time.

Listing NGR: ST0353116197

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

95984

Legacy System:

LBS

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