Description

PLYMTREE ST 00 SE 3/127 Middle Clyst William Farmhouse 22.2.55 - II*

Farmhouse. Mid - late C15 with major C16 and C17 improvements, C19 extension. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stacks, one built within an earlier timber-framed smoke bay, topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof. Plan and development: 5-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south-west. At the left (north-west) end is the kitchen with a gable-end stack, its oven housing projects from the end. Next to it is an unheated room, now the dining room but probably of some service use formerly such as dairy, buttery, or pantry. Then there is the passage and right of it is the large former hall which has a projecting front lateral stack. At the upper end of the hall is an inner room parlour which was formerly the end room and had an end stack (now disused). The room at the right end is a C19 extension. It was built as cider cellar but has now been brought into domestic use. This is a house with a long and compelx structural history. The original hall house was not much smaller than the present one (excluding the C19 extension). There was a chamber over the inner room from the beginning. The rest of the house was open to the roof, divided by low partition screens and was heated by an open hearth fire. At an early stage it seems that the top at least of the left end truss was filled to create some kind of smoke bay this end. This may be related to the flooring over the rest of the lower end (the service room) before building a full height crosswall on the lower side of the passage. The hall open hearth fire was still in operation at this time. In the mid or late C16 the hall stack was inserted and the hall was floored over in the early or mid C17. Some time in the C16 the kitchen end smoke bay was replaced by a timber-framed stack and, probably in the C18, a stone stack was built inside the framed one. In the mid - late C17 the inner room was rebuilt and enlarged as a parlour with a new stack. Exterior: 7-window front of mostly C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars the right end windows (to the former cider cellar) are C20 and contain rectangular panes of leaded glass. The passage front doorway is left of centre alongside the hall stack and it contains an old studded plank door behind a C20 gabled porch. The roof is half-hipped to right and gable-ended to left. For the most part the rear windows are similar to those on the front except for the inner room parlour which has a C17 oak window with moulded mullions. Interior is very good: both sides of the passage are lined with close-studded crosswalls, possibly mid C16 or thereabouts in date. The ceiling of tne dining room/former service room is probably very early and is made up of a series of axial large scantling joists; for some reason they stop short of the passage partition and rest there on the headbeam of an original low partition screen. The kitchen too is floored by plain axial joists. The fireplace here is stone rubble, heavily patched with C19 brick, and has a plain oak lintel. At first floor level the extensive remains of the C16 timber-framed stack can be seen. The hall is a large room and it has a large fireplace; the Beerstone ashlar jambs have panelled cheeks, it has an oak lintel and moulded surround. The C17 crossbeams here are chamfered with scroll stops. The inner room parlour crossbeam is richly-moulded with bar runout stops. The fireplace here has been destroyed. The late medieval roof is a very good specimen and survives essentially intact from the closed truss at the upper end of the hall to the kitchen end. It is 5 bays carried on large scantling side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with single sets of curving windbraces (many of which still survive). Each truss has a saddle apex (Alcock's apex type C). The ridge is square set over the service end and diagonally set over the hall and passage. The 2 trusses over the hall have cambered collars and chamfered arch braces and there is evidence of a smoke louvre here. The whole of this roof structure (except for the inner room side of closed truss) is heavily smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. The roof is particularly well- preserved over the hall and here even the sooted late medieval thatch remains. The secondary crosswall over tne lower side of the passage is smoke-blackened on the hall side only. The space above the collar of the left end stack is filled with heavily sooted wattling from the smoke bay there. The parlour roof is also carried on a side-pegged jointed cruck but this is a C17 example; it is clean. Middle Clyst William is not only attractive but also a well-preserved multi-phase Devon farmhouse. It is notabe for its fine late medieval roof.

Listing NGR: ST0683402716

External Links

• Wikidata Q17546756

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Recommended Books

• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
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  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
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  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)