Description

SX 79 SW DREWSTEIGNTON

5/65 Thornbury farmhouse including
forecourt walls adjoining to south

II

Farmhouse. Mid C16 (possibly earlier) with major later C16 and C17 improvements and
minor modernisations since. Roughcast on cob with stone rubble footings; granite
and cob stacks topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof to main block, corrugated
iron and slate to kitchen and outshots.
Plan and development: originally a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing
south and built across a hillslope with service end parlour at the left (west) end
with a gable-end stack. Hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage. Large
inner room with end stack. 14id C17 kitchen block projecting at right angles forward
from the right end and overlapping a short distance. It has a front end stack and
woodshed outshot on the front. Late C19 pump house in the angle of the 2 wings and
probably secondary dairy outshot to rear. The early development of the house is
impossible to determine at present since the roofspace is inaccessible.
Nevertheless the original house was an open hall house. By the mid C17 all the
rooms were floored and had fireplaces. The rear of the passage was blocked by a new
staircase. 2 storeys.
Exterior: the right end of the front is hidden behind the kitchen and pumphouse but
the rest has a balanced, nearly symmetrical 3-window front of C20 casements without
glazing bars arranged around the front passage doorway containing ablate C19 - early
C20 part-glazed door. Roof is gable-ended to left and half-hipped to right.
Kitchen roof is hipped.
Interior: is mainly the result of C19 and C20 modernisations but enough early work
shows to prove that these were essentially superficial. In the main block all the
fireplaces are blocked by C20 grates and much of the carpentry detail is hidden by
plaster. The service end parlour contains an C18 cupboard with fielded panel doors
and H-hinges. In the passage the granite ashlar back of the hall fireplace shows.
The hall has a C17 soffit-chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam. The large inner
room (now the kitchen) has plastered crossbeams. The original roof seems to survive
but the roofspace is inaccessible. 2 large side-pegged jointed cruck trusses are
exposed and others may be boxed into the crosswalls. Most of the main block joinery
detail is C19 although there are a couple of C18 2 fielded panel doors. The kitchen
wing fireplace is partly blocked and only the centre of its soffit-chamfered oak
lintel shows. The crossbeam here is soffit-chamfered with runout stops and the 2-
bay roof is carried on an A-frame truss with pegged lap-jointed collar. The pump
house contains a large granite trough.
The forecourt is enclosed by low granite stone rubble wall with rounded coping and
includes a central gateway which is gained by a flight of granite steps.

Listing NGR: SX7015593485

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26611580

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

• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)