Description

COLDRIDGE WEST LEIGH
SS 60 NE
1/45
- Little Cutland
(formerly Woodhay Farmhouse)
- II*

House, former farmhouse. Late C15-early C16 with C16 and C17 improvements,
extended in C17. Plastered cob on rubble footings; cob or stone rubble stacks,
one with the original stone chimney shaft, the others C20 brick; thatch roof.
3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south-east with service end room at
right (north-east) end. End stack to service room. Hall has axial stack backing
onto the through passage. C17 kitchen added to end of inner room and roof extended
on same pitch to end kitchen stack.
Regular but not symmetrical 4-window front with a fifth C20 ground floor window at
right end, comprising a variety of C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars and
including one (first floor right) retaining a late C17 frame and was originally 3
lights but is now missing one of its flat-faced mullions. The centre 2 first floor
windows have relatively large thatch gables over, the window to right has a low
thatch gable over and the window to left has a thatch eyebrow. The passage has a
C19 front door and immediately to left is the projection from the oven inserted to
the hall stack. At the left end is a C20 glazed door to the kitchen. The roof is
gable-ended. The rear wall includes the original late C15-early C16 oak hall
window still insitu. It has 2 narrow lights and simple square-section mullion and
its simple trefoil heads are cut from a single piece of oak. It has never been
glazed.
Good and well-preserved interior containing the work of several building phases.
The hall preserves the oldest features. Besides the original rear window the
original roof survives here. It is 2 bays. The central jointed cruck truss has
face pegs augmented by a slip tenon. The collar is flat and the purlins are
threaded. The truss, common rafters and underside of the thatch is thoroughly
smoke-blackened indicating that the hall at least was open to the roof and heated
by an open hearth fire. The cob crosswalls either end seem clean and therefore
secondary, probably late C16, and that at lower end appears to contain a blocked
window at first floor level. Probably in the late C16 the hall fireplace was
inserted. It is built of small squared blocks of stone with a plain and high oak
lintel. The oven is a C19 insertion. The rear of the passage on the hall side has
an oak plank-and-muntin screen which includes a slightly damaged shoulder-headed
doorway; probably a section of an original low partition reused in late C16. At
the same time or slightly later the passage chamber was erected jettying into the
lower end of the hall as far as the chimney breast. Hall was eventually floored in
early-mid C17 with axial beam and 2 half beams, all with soffit ovolo mouldings and
scroll stops. Associated with this process a post of large scantling was set
against the inner corner of the stack so as to prop both the new main beam and the
late C16 jetty bressumer. It has richly-moulded corners, single and double ovolos
and scroll stops some of which are incised as leaves. The cob crosswall at the
upper end of the hall includes a cream oven alcove, probably C18 or C19 and
alongside is a C16 oak doorframe with chamfered surround and pyramid stops to the
large and unheated inner room.
The inner room has an axial beam of massive scantling and is soffit-chamfered with
late step stops at one end, probably late C16-early C17. In the back of the hall
crosswall are 2 small elliptical-shaped recesses into the cob which appear to be
lined with leather. Their function and date is unknown. The roof above is
inaccessible although it rests on purlins between the cob crosswalls either end.
Beyond the inner room is the C17 kitchen with a large end fireplace built of rubble
with its oak lintel soffit-chamfered with scroll stops. The C19 oven is probably a
relining of the original. 2-bay roof above in accessible but the exposed feet of
the truss suggest that it is C17. There is also a C17 oak doorframe with chamfered
surround and scroll stops from the kitchen chamber to the inner room chamber. The
service room has a roughly soffit-chamfered axial beam of uncertain date and the
roof above is inaccessible. The fireplace here is probably a late C19 or C20
insertion.
Little Cutland is a well-preserved example of a typical multi-phase Devon farmhouse
containing some interesting early features.

Listing NGR: SS6887105288

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17548056

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

• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)