Description

WHIMPLE CHURCH STREET, Whimple
SY 0497-0597
10/236 Nos 1 and 2 Rose Cottage
-
GV II

2 cottages, made by dividing a former farmhouse. Early - mid C16 with major later
C16 and C17 improvements, modernised in 1976. Plastered cob, some of it without
stone rubble footings, south end wall rebuilt in C20 brick; hall stack is timber-
framed, the kitchen stack is cob, the other is stone rubble or brick, all have C20
plastered brick chimneyshafts; slate roof, formerly thatch.
Plan and development: pair of cottages set back from the road and facing west-
north-west, say west. Each has a 2-room plan, No 1 to the left (north) and No 2 to
the right (south). This layout has been adapted from a 4-room-and-through-passage
plan. No 1 occupies the site of the passage and 2 lower end rooms. The left
(north) end room is the former kitchen/bakehouse with rear lateral stack including a
projecting smoking chamber. Next to it was a small unheated service room which has
been enlarged by the removal of the passage lower end screen. The passage front
doorway is now blocked. No 2 occupies the former hall and inner room. The hall has
an axial stack backing onto the site of the passage. The inner room has a
projecting end stack but this was inserted in the C20 when this end wall was
rebuilt.
The original house had a 3-room-and-through-passage plan; the kitchen/bakehouse was
a mid C17 extension. The original roof appears to be clean. Thus it seems that the
hall stack is an original feature. The inner room end may have been floored over
from the beginning but the hall at least is thought to have been open to the roof.
It was floored over in the late C16 - early C17. The kitchen/bakehouse extension is
wholly mid C17 and it stems that the house once extended further northwards.
Cottages are 2 storey with secondary outshots to rear.
Exterior: overall irregular 5-window front of C19 and C20 casements with glazing
bars. The window right of centre is blocking the original passage doorway. The
doorway to No 1 is to rear of the left end (into the former kitchen/bakehouse). It
is a late C19 6-panel door behind a contemporary gabled porch with wavy bargeboards.
The front doorway to No 2 is towards the right end (into the former hall) and
contains C20 French windows. It is flanked by C20 buttresses. A little right of
centre at first floor level is an old stucco oval plaque. It was painted in the C20
"Rose Cottage, 1660". Roof is gable-ended.
Interior: little carpentry is exposed below roof level in No 2. The former
hall/inner room partition is plastered over (it may be an oak screen) and the
fireplace is blocked (its timber-framed stack shows in the roofspace). The hall
crossbeam is exposed; it is chamfered with cut diagonal stops. A full height cob
crosswall separates the former service room and the kitchen/bakehouse. Here the
crossbeam and half-beams are chamfered with scroll stops. The rear fireplace has
been somewhat altered. It is stone rubble and cob with a chamfered oak lintel with
a scroll stop to right only. There is a large brick oven in the right side. The
left end of the lintel rests on an oak post. Apparently it originally extended
further left, across a large alcove which projected to rear. Tnis was a large walk-
in smoking chamber and during the 1976 renovation the alcove walls were stripped
revealing heavy sooting and a flue into the main stack. 1-bay roof over this
kitchen/bakehouse section with a side-pegged jointed cruck with pegged dovetail
shaped lap-jointed collar. This bay is smoke-blackened. However there is no
evidence that the roof is any earlier than the kitchen stack. It would seem
therefore that smoke leaked into the roof from the stack or smoking chamber. The
original roof over the rest of the house is carried on side-pegged jointed cruck
trusses.
Source: Exeter Museums Archeological Field Unit archive includes a ground plan and
long section made in 1976 by John R. L. Thorp.

Listing NGR: SY0441997044

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26390287

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.

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