Description

SX 69 NE SOUTH TAWTON WICKINGTON LANE

1/254 Wickington Farmhouse

20.2.52
II*

Farmhouse. C15 with C16 and C17 improvements, refurbished and a little rebuilt in
the late C19. The porch is coursed blocks of granite ashlar; the rest is plastered,
either cob on stone rubble footings or stone rubble or a combination of the 2; stone
rubble stacks with plastered chimneyshafts, one of them with granite ashlar coping;
slate roof, originally thatch.
Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing east. The left
(southern) end room is an inner room. Axial stack between hall and inner room
serves back-to-back fireplaces. Service end stack has an end stack. 2-storey porch
to rear of passage. Late C19 stair block to rear of the inner room. Present
kitchen in an outshot to rear of service end and it forms one side of a small
service courtyard which also includes kennels, pump house and woodshed. Present
layout is apprently the result of the late C19 refurbishment of the house.
Nevertheless enough early fabric can been to suggest that more is hidden by C19
plaster. The original house was an open hall house was heated by an open hearth
fire. The lower stage of the porch is also thought to be original, its top stage
rebuilt in the early-mid C16. The service end room was divided into buttery and
servery at the beginning. In the C17 or later the division was removed and the
present fireplace inserted. The date of the other stack is not known. The inner
room end was largely rebuilt in the late C19. Now 2 storeys throughout.
Exterior: the front is dominated by the porch which is most impressive and
unusually early. The lower stage is square in plan with narrow gun port slits each
side. 2-centred granite outer arch with moulded surround. The upper stage is
octagonal, except for the back angles, which are expanded to stairs on one side and
an alcove on the other. The front corners have broaches. Front window is granite,
square-headed with 2 lights, 2-centred almost round-headed lights and sunken
spandrels. The roof is conical but formerly there was either another storey or flat
roof with parapet. To left the 2 gables of the C19 outshots contain C19 and C20
casements with glazing bars and horned 4-pane sashes. To right the service
courtyard paved with unpended cobbles. The right projecting wing contains 3 kennels
and a passage through, the front wing contains pumphouse and woodshed and left side
is closed by a rubble wall alongside the cobbled front path. The rear elevation has
an irregular 3-window front of C19 and C20 casements the latest without glazing
bars. The passage doorway here is a granite 2-centred arch with moulded surround
and contains a C20 panelled door. Similar passage front doorway with chamfered
surround and contains a C19 panelled door. Main roof is hipped each end.
Interior is largely the result of the late C19 modernisation but some good quality
early work does show and more is probably hidden. The passage, like the porch has a
floor of upended cobbles. The lower end passage partition is a full height stone
and cob crosswall. The central doorway this side was once wider; in fact probably a
double doorway to buttery and servery which were divided by a partition along the
line of boxed in axial beam in the service end. The service end fireplace is
blocked but its position shows that it was inserted after the putative partition had
been removed. Both the inner room and hall fireplaces are blocked by late C19
grates. Hall crossbeam is boxed in and inner room has probably late C17 soffit-
chamfered and straight cut stopped crossbeams. The hall-passage partition contains
2 sections of a probably original and most unusual oak plank-and-muntin screen in
which the muntins are moulded like Perpendicular Devon church piers with horizontal
mouldings half way up the shafts. Most of the joinery detail throughout the house,
including the main stair, is late C19. The 3 sections of roof over the main block
are different. The oldest is the probably original section over hall and passage
which includes 2 cruck-type trusses (the lower sections are plastered over). They
have curving soffit-chamfered collars and small triangular-shaped yokes (Alcock's
apex type L2). This section is also smoke-blackened from an open hearth fire. The
inner room roof is late C19 replacement. The service end 2-bay roof contains a
face-pegged jointed cruck truss with through purlins; it is clean and probably mid
C17 in date.
The porch has a low barrel-vaulted roof with chamfered stone ribs. Doorway to tower
stair from lower side of passage near the front. It is a plain 2-centred arch
containing an ancient studded plank door. The stone stairs appear once to have
continued up to the 2nd floor. Original oak round-headed doorframe from the stairs
to the chamber over the service end room. The 2-centred arch to the porch guardroom
is now blocked but it is illustrated by Lega-Weekes who also describes a small
granite fireplace and a garderobe alcove and chute.
Wickington Farmhouse is a most interesting farmhouse which includes features of
unusually high standard of craftmanship. Lega-Weekes, who saw the building before
some its late C19 modernisations, describes a surviving granite merlon from an
embattled parapet around the main block.
Source. E. Lega-Weekes. Neighbours of North Wyke. Part 1. Trans. Devon
Association 33 (1901) pp 448-449, and illustrations on pages opposite.

Listing NGR: SX6569296705

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17537121

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

• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings