Description

SX 69 SW BELSTONE

3/1 Lower Priestacott Farmhouse

II

Farmhouse, former Dartmoor longhouse. Early C16 with major late C16 and C17 improvements including a late C17 parlour wing extension, modernised in mid C19. Plastered granite stone rubble with some cob on the wall tops; granite stacks with granite ashlar chimney shafts, one extended with C20 brick; thatch roof (replaced with corrugated iron over the shippon). Plan and development: L-shaped building. The original part is the main block. It is a low 3-room-and-through-passage plan Dartmoor longhouse facing south-east and built down the hillslope. At the uphill left (south-west) end an unheated inner room is terraced into the hillslope. It is now a kitchen but was probably a dairy formerly. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage. The end of the shippon was demolished in the late C19 - early c20 when a barn was added onto the end. In the late C17 a parlour wing was built at right angles in front and overlapping the end of the inner room. At that time the hall became a kitchen and a corridor was built through the inner room from the hall to the new parlour. Stair from upper end of the hall and a C19 stair inserted into the parlour. The original house was open to the roof from end to end, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. Through the C16 and C17 the hall stack was inserted and the house was progressively floored over. Now 2 storeys throughout. Exterior: The main front has a single ground floor C19 casement to the hall. To right, beyond the oven projection is the passage front doorway containing a C19 plank door in a solid timber frame (rear passage doorway is smaller). To right of this is the cow-door with a hayloft loading hatch directly above, and right of this door is a ventilator slit. There is another opposite in the back wall. The inner side of the parlour wing has a 2-window front of C19 casements with glazing bars and includes a secondary C19 door. Both blocks are gable-ended. Interior: preserves elements from all the major building phases. The hall fireplace is partly-blocked but its massive size and plain granite ashlar surround is evident; it was probably inserted in the late C16. At the upper end of the hall the headbeam shows of an oak plank-and-muntin screen; maybe an original low partition. The inner room was floored over in the late C16 and the chamber oversailed the screen to produce an internal jetty. Since the framed crosswall of the chamber is clean on the hall side it was probably built at the same time as the hall fireplace was inserted. The hall was floored over sometime in the C17 with a soffit-chamfered axial beam. The roof over the hall and inner room is the original. True cruck trusses are suspected but the lower sections of both trusses are boxed in. There is a hip cruck at the inner room end. The whole of this section including the underside of the thatch is thoroughly smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire. Over the passage there is a oak truss (again the lower parts are hidden). This seems to be late C16 and built with the hall stack and it carries another roof over the top of the original. The shippon crossbeam has been removed. The parlour wing was modernised in the C19 and that carpentry detail which shows including a plain solid doorframe from the inner room corridor. The fireplace here is blocked. This is an interesting and attractive farmhouse with good evidence for all phases of its historic development.

Listing NGR: SX6177894543

External Links

• Wikidata Q26400013

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Recommended Books

• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
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  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House