Summary

A C17 house with C19 and C20 additions to the rear.

Description

A C17 house with C19 and C20 additions to the rear.

MATERIALS: whitewashed and rendered rubble-stone and cob walls, thatch roof, and brick gable-end and lateral off-centre stacks.

PLAN: the original three-room building runs east-to-west, with a later rear wing at a right angle to the north.

EXTERIOR: the gable-ended cottage is two storeys with a pitched thatch roof. The front elevation is flanked by tile-topped buttress walls and has four bays with ground and first floor two-light, three-paned windows, with the exception of a single-light first-floor window at the west end. The off-centre plank door is covered by a thatch canopy supported by slender chamfered posts. The west elevation has a pair of timber French windows. The east elevation has a first-floor Gothic-style, pointed-arched window and a large projecting chimney. To the rear is the two-storey, pitched roof cross wing with a cat-slide single-storey addition. A later single-storey lean to has been added to the centre of the rear range and includes a set of French windows. At the west end of the elevation, the original rear wall is visible and has a two-light, three-paned window.

INTERIOR: the ground floor has been subject to refurbishment in the late C20/ early C21. The fire surrounds in the main range are modern replacements. The fragment of timber panelling with linenfold detailing beneath the window in the central room appears to be a C19 /early C20 copy. On the ground floor of the rear wing is a fireplace with a bread oven and a timber bressemer. Some of the C17 joinery survives including the winder-stair treads and square newel post (the panelling is a modern addition that replaces an earlier banister), some of the door frames and chamfered ceiling beams. The west end, first-floor bedroom has a plaster cornice with a double band of intertwined foliated design on three sides. The collar-beam roof survives well, including the timber-pegged principal trusses which have undergone some re-engineering, particularly at the bases.

History

Westacombe Cottage was built in the C17 as a three-room, through-passage house. It appears on the Heanton Punchardon Tithe Map (circa 1840) as a long range running parallel to the road. In the later half of the C19 a single-storey rear wing was added. A second storey was added to part of this rear wing in the mid-C20. A further extension was added to the main rear elevation in the late C20. A number of the internal features, recorded as surviving in the late C20, have since been removed including the C17 carved acanthus-decorated panels flanking one of the fireplaces, a low stone hall fireplace with four-centred arch, and panelling on the walls of one of the ground-floor rooms (the panelling was said to come from a house in Bideford). The front elevation windows were replaced with early C21 replica frames.

Reasons for Listing

Westacombe Cottage, Heaton Punchardon is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
*Architectural interest: it demonstrates well the use of local materials and building tradition, with added interesting architectural embellishments;
*Historic interest: the C17 house retains a significant proportion of original building fabric;
* Legibility: the original form of the main range and the later phases are clearly legible;
*Group value: with a number of nearby listed buildings including the C16 Eastacombe Farmhouse (Grade II).

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26401537

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

• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
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  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
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  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)