Description

SX 68 NE GIDLEIGH CHAPPLE

3/185 Chapple Farmhouse including garden - railings adjoining to south 22.2.67 GV II

Farmhouse. C17 or earlier, thoroughly refurbished and somewhat rearranged in mid C19. Plastered granite stone rubble; granite stacks, 2 with granite ashlar chimney shafts and one replaced with plastered brick; slate roof (formerly thatch although the principal room section has probably been slated since the mid C19), corrugated iron roof to outshots. Plan: long 5-room plan building built across a hillslope facing south. The house is basically as it was rearranged in the mid C19. At the left (west) end there is an unheated service room containing a woodstore. The 2 rooms to the right of this are the principal rooms and between them is an entrance hall with the main stair rising against the rear wall. The left end 2 rooms are the service rooms and they are separated by a cross passage with the service stair rising against the rear wall. An axial stack between the principal rooms and the service rooms serves back-to-back fireplaces. The other main room has an axial stack backing onto the woodstore and the end room of the service rooms has a gable end stack. It seems likely that the original house was C17 or earlier and had a 3-room-and-through-passage plan and may have been a Dartmoor longhouse. However, the mid C19 refurbishment was so extensive that insufficient of the early fabric is now exposed to determine the former layout. It is 2 storeys with C19 outshots across the rear. Exterior: Overall 8-window front in 2 sections. There is no window, only a C19 plank door, to the woodstore at the left end. The principal rooms have a symmetrical 3-window section around a central doorway. They are C19 16-pane sashes under low segmental arches. The service end has a nearly symmetrical 5-window arrangement (only 2 to the ground floor) and central doorway. These are C19 and C20 casements, the oldest containing rectangular panes of leaded glass, the others with glazing bars. Both doorways contain C19 part-glazed 6-panel doors behind C20 gabled rustic timber porches. The roof is gable-ended and the principal room end has a lower pitch than the service end. To rear a C19 service door near the end wall. The rest is taken up by an attractive continuous outshot. Interior: Most of what shows is the result of the mid C19 refurbishment including just about all the joinery detail. The oldest fabric is exposed in the inner of the principal rooms. The C17 crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with straight cut stops. The fireplace is contemporary; built of granite ashlar with hollow-chamfered surround. Half is blocked by the C19 oven housing, inserted with the kitchen fireplace behind. Alongside is a C19 cream oven. The kitchen fireplace has a plain chamfered oak lintel and the crossbeams of the service rooms are similarly finished. The roof is inaccessible for the most part. The truss over the woodstore however is a late C17 - early C18 A-frame with pegged and spiked lap-jointed collar. A jointed cruck is recorded here according to Devon SMR but none show. Also the eastern gable end shows that the roof has been raised at some time. From the right end of the front a low granite wall with C19 cast iron railings on top extends southwards towards the nearby barn (q.v) and includes a gateway flanked by monolithic square-section gate posts with rounded heads and containing a C19 wrought iron gate. Chapple Farmhouse is one of attractive group of listed buildings in a hamlet which also includes West Chapple (q.v). Although most of what can be seen is mid C19 the farmhouse is evidently much older and older features are probably hidden behind C19 plaster.

Listing NGR: SX6715189118

External Links

• Wikidata Q26400053

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Recommended Books

• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)