Description

CLYST HYDON
ST 00 SW
2/3 Hoop Farmhouse including linhay
- adjoining to north
- II

Farmhouse. Early C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, some C19
modernisation, part renovated circa 1980. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings;
stone rubble stacks topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof.
Plan and development: long 4-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south-
south-west, say south and built down a gentle hillslope. Uphill at the left (west)
end there is an inner room kitchen with a gable-end stack. Next to it is the hall
with a projecting rear lateral stack. To right (east) of the passage there are 2
unheated rooms; the first is the smaller of the two and was probably a dairy or
buttery. The end room was formerly a service room or cellar but circa 1980 it was
thoroughly refurbished and converted to a parlour. This parlour also projects to
rear as the room was enlarged into a 2-storey outshot.
The early C16 house was an open hall house. The inner room/present kitchen was
floored at the beginning and the chamber above jettied into the open hall. The rest
of the house was open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open
hearth fire. The hall chimneystack was probably inserted in the mid or late C16.
The service end may have been floored over about the same time but that part has
been so much rebuilt that no structural evidence shows to indicate its early
development. The hall was floored over in the early - mid C17. At the same time
the inner room chamber was reduced a little in size as the original framed jetty
crosswall was demolished and a new full height crosswall built at the upper end of
the hall. The inner room kitchen fireplace appears to be C18 or C19. If it is not
a replacement of a C17 stack here, then the hall had the only fireplace before the
C18 or C19.
The house is 2 storeys with a C20 lean-to conservatory on the right (east) end and
secondary lean-to outshots to rear.
Exterior: irregular 4-window front of C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars. The
passage front doorway is roughly central and it contains a C20 glazed door. There
is a secondary doorway to right into the inner room kitchen and it contains a late
C19 - early C20 plank door. The roof is gable-ended to left and hipped to right.
Interior: shows largely the results of the C19 and C20 modernisations.
Nevertheless the historic layout is well-preserved and (apart from the lower end
parlour) the carpentry detail appears to be well-preserved. The inner room kitchen
has a axial beam, unstopped with deep chamfers; it is probably Cl7 and associated
with the rearrangement of this end when the hall was floored over. The kitchen
fireplace is large. It has brick jambs and a plain oak lintel. It is partly
blocked although an oven housing projects outside behind it. The hall is a large
room. It has a C17 crossbeam; it is richly-moulded with semi-pyramid stops. The
fireplace here is blocked. No carpentry details shows in the passage or the former
dairy/buttery. The beams of the lower end parlour were replaced circa 1980, so too
was the roof structure above. The rest of the roof is original. It is carried on
side-pegged jointed cruck trusses of large scantling and there is a hip cruck at the
inner room end. The original jetty crosswall was a closed truss. The roof
structure over the inner room chamber is clean. The rest of the roof structure
(including the common rafter couples and underside of the surviving original thatch)
is heavily smoke-blackened from the orignal open hearth fire. There is also
evidence of a demolished smoke louvre over the hall.
The Linhay: a probably C13 linhay projects at right angles to rear of the inner room
kitchen. It is built of cob on stone rubble footings with a corrugated iron roof
and faces west onto the farm courtyard. It is open-fronted and 5 bays (Alcock's
Type T1). The roughly-finished crossbeams which carry the tallet/hayloft floor are
tusk-tenoned into full height front posts which stand on stone pads. The posts
support the outer principals of A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars.
Hoop is an attractive and well-preserved multi-phase Devon farmhouse. It has a
marvellous setting on high ground with extensive views.

Listing NGR: ST0230001226

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26390396

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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  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
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  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
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  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
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  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
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  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability