Description

YARSCOMBE
SS 52 SE
4/258 Chapple Farmhouse
-
II

Former farmhouse. Circa late C16/early C17. Stone rubble and cob, whitewashed and
rendered; slate roof, gabled at ends and at end of rear right wing; front lateral
stack with a tall dressed stone shaft, end stacks to main range, end stack to rear
right wing.
Plan: Overall L plan. The main range, facing east, is a 3 room and through passage
arrangement, lower end kitchen to the left (south); hall heated from the front
lateral stack with an adjacent hall bay; inner room parlour to the right (north). A
rear outshut with a catslide roof may be integral and contains the stair, rising
behind the hall with access from the rear of the through passage. A rear right dairy
wing with accommodation over is probably C18 or C19; C20 rear lean-to to main range.
Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 4 window front with the front door to the through
passage to left of centre. Windows a mixture of C19 and C20 timber sashes and
casements with glazing bars.
Interior: Slate floors to the passage and left hand room. The left hand room has an
open fireplace with a brick lintel and jambs: a void adjacent to the stack may be a
former smoking chamber. The left and right partitions of the hall rise to the apex
of the roof as closed trusses. The hall retains chamfered crossbeams with bar scroll
stops and an open fireplace with a hollow-moulded lintel, stone rubble jambs and a
clay-lined bread oven. The hall bench survives, returning in the hall bay and
supported in brackets; the bench back is made up of re-used C17 panelling. A small
closet opens off the rear of the hall, within the outshut: the present stair cuts
into this closet, which may have been a buttery. A probable C16 2-light window with
splayed internal jambs in the closet now looks into the dairy but is presumably in a
former external wall. The window consists of a pair of narrow rectangular unglazed
slits in a single piece of oak. The parlour has chamfered cross beams matching those
in the hall and a fireplace with an ovolo-moulded stopped lintel. The dairy retains
slate-topped benches.
Roof: 2 curved foot trusses survive corresponding to the left and right partitions
of the hall. The trusses have lap-dovetailed collars and later timbering above.
Both trusses are associated with framed partitions, one of these has been exposed
recently and was evidently constructed with shuttered cob infill.
A very complete traditional house, attractive externally and with good interior
features.

Listing NGR: SS5645221893

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26398953

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)