Description

EAST AND WEST BUCKLAND SS 63 SE 3/65 Whitsford Farmhouse -

- II

Farmhouse, late C15 or early C16, remodelled and possibly extended in C17, with C19 and C20 alterations. Rendered stone rubble and cob. Asbestos slate roof with brick stack backing onto the cross-passage, small brick stack at right gable end and axial lower end brick stack. This end may well originally have been a byre. Solid cob partitions to each side of cross-passage and between hall and inner room, the hall originally open to the roof, the inner room possibly an addition, its upper floor served by a stair turret to the rear. Complex plan development. Present plan basically 3 rooms and cross-passage containing principal staircase to its rear, the extended lower end also incorporating an integral lofted outbuilding which until recently was used as a stable. 2 storeys. 5-window range. C19/C20 fenestration. Two 2-light casements, 4 panes per light to left, 3 half-dormers with raking roofs to right with 2-light windows 3 panes per light. Ground floor from left has a 2-light casement 6 panes per light, 3-light casement 4 panes per light, 4-panelled door, the upper panels glazed to cross-pssage. 6 paned single-light window to right lighting hall hearth area, 2- light hall window 6 panes per light and 2-light casement 3 panes per light to right end. Continuous slated outshuts to rear. Interior: C19 joinery principally intact throughout. Hall has cross ceiling beam and bressumers at each end with relatively thin chamfers terminating in scroll- stops. An axial partition has been inserted to the rear of the hall to create a passage to the inner room. Hall fireplace blocked up but original lintel probably survives. Inner room has single axial beam, roughly chamfered and unstopped. A blocked doorway, now a cupboard, to the rear wall indicates access to a former rear staircase which has been rebuilt and the stair turret probably enlarged. The lower end room with a pronounced step down from the cross-passage is featureless. The principal stairs to rear of cross-passage break into 2 flights at the head serving the room over the lower end and chamber over the hall. Solid cob partitions rise to the apex of the roof between the hall and inner room, and on the upper side of the cross-passage, incorporating the hall stack. Solid cob wall between cross-passage and lower end. A single truss with short curved feet, diagonally threaded ridge purlin and 2 tiers of threaded purlins survives over lower end, with no sign of smoke-blackening. The stone rubble wall between the lower end and integral former stables is clearly an insertion, as is the stack, strongly suggesting that this extended lower end was once a byre with access from the cross-passage. Over the hall is an impressive cruck truss, with 2 tiers of threaded purlins, diagonally set ridge purlin and morticed and tenoned cambered collar. All the roof members over the hall including the rafters are thoroughly smoke-blackened. The feet of the principals appear to rest on the hall ceiling beam ie. it is, unusually for North Devon, an upper cruck truss, but the insertion of hall ceiling may have involved its conversion from a true cruck. The thin chamfers and scroll stops of the hall ceiling beams suggest a late date well into the C17 for the insertion of the hall floor and insertion of the stack. The roof over the inner room has been entirely replaced in C20, but the solid cob wall between the hall and inner room suggests the latter may be an addition to the original hall, cross-passage and byre, with 2 storeys from the outset, the upper storey served by its own stair turret. Therefore if it is an addition, this is likely to have occurred before the flooring over the hall. Other indications that the lower end served as a byre are the late insertion of the gable end stack heating the inner room and the fact that until recently the latter was known as a dairy ie. the service room was located at the upper end of the hall. This is therefore an interesting example of a probable longhouse with byre, cross- passage, former open hall and suggested added upper service end.

Listing NGR: SS6588233331

External Links

• Wikidata Q26401380

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