Description

ST 11 SW
10/54

CULMSTOCK
HILLMOOR
Southwoods Farmhouse

II

Farmhouse. Early or mid C16 with later C16 and C17 improvements. Plastered stone
rubble with some cob; stone rubble stacks topped with C20 brick; thatch roof.
Plan and development: 4-room-and-through-passage plan house built across a gentle
hillslope and faces north-west. At the left (north-east) end there is a small
unheated inner room (now used as a kitchen). The hall has a large projecting front
lateral stack. Below (right of) the passage there is an unheated dairy and, at the
right end, the former kitchen with a gable-end stack and staircase rising alongside.
The roofspace is inaccessible and therefore it is not possible to determine the
early development of the house. Nevertheless it seems likely that the early C16
house was open to the roof from end to end, heated by an open hearth fire and
divided by low partitions. Around the mid C16 an inner room chamber was erected
jettying into the open hall. The hall fireplace was probably inserted in the mid or
late C16. The service end may have been floored about the same time but appears to
have been thoroughly refurbished in the early or mid C17. The hall was floored over
about the same time. Farmhouse is now 2 storeys throughout.
Exterior: the service end (right of the passage) is blind and hidden by a C20
weatherboarded leanto shed. The rest has an irregular 2-window front of small late
C19 and C20 casements, the latest without glazing bars. The passage front doorway
is roughly central (immediately right of the hall stack). It contains a solid oak
doorframe over which a C19 architrave is applied and there is a C19 plank door. The
roof is gable-ended. Its ridge and eaves drop in height from hall to inner room.
The rear has more casement windows similar to those on the front.
Interior: is largely the result of C19 and C20 modernisations which have combined
to hide a lot of the C16 and C17 fabric. Nevertheless the early layout is well-
preserved and there is evidence that much early carpentry and other detail is
hidden. Although no carpentry shows in the inner room the evidence of the jetty
shows in the hall and the present doorway from hall to inner room reveals the
headbeam of an oak plank-and-muntin screen. The passage is reported to be lined by
similar oak screens. The hall fireplace is blocked by a C20 grate and the hall
crossbeam has broad soffit-chamfers with step stops (one end cut off by C20 stairs).
The service end kitchen has 2 axial beams with soffit-chamfers and shaped step
stops. The fireplace here is blocked. The roofspace is inaccessible but a side-
pegged jointed cruck truss is exposed over the hall and there is another over the
kitchen. Others are probably boxed into the first floor partition.
This is an attractive and interesting small Devon multi-phase farmhouse in which
much of the early fabric is apparently hidden by C19 and C20 plaster.

Listing NGR: ST1095213202

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26611413

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

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  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
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  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
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  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings