Description

SX 68 NE CHAGFORD

3/72 Teigncombe Farmhouse including - garden walls to north-east

GV II

Farmhouse. Early or mid C16 with major C17 alterations, last major modernisation circa 1924. Walls of granite stone rubble with large dressed granite quoins, plastered on front; granite stacks, all with their original granite ashlar chimney shafts; slate roof, thatch until circa 1924. Plan and development: L-shaped house. The main block faces north-east and is built down a slope. It has a 3-room-and-through-passage plan with the inner room at the uphill right (north-western) end. The original house was open to the roof, at least in the hall, and probably heated by an open hearth fire. By the end of the C17 it was floored throughout. It is tempting to suggest that it was built as a Dartmoor longhouse but there is no positive proof. About the middle or end of the C17 an end fireplace was built on the lower end and certainly since then the lower end room has been in domestic use. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage and the inner room has an end stack with a newel stair alongside. Probably in the C18 a dairy block added to rear of the inner room, and in C20 rear of passage blocked by insertion of bathroom into what looks like a former porch. Now 2 storeys throughout. Exterior: Irregular 5-window front of various C19 and C20 casements. Those at the left end contain small rectangular panes of leaded glass whilst the 2 first floor windows on the right end contain mostly diamond panes of leaded glass. Rest have glazing bars. The front passage doorway left of centre contains a late C19-early C20 door as too does the inserted doorway to the inner room at the right end. Roof is gable-ended. Newel stair projects a little from the right end, and left end wall contains a presumably C17 2-light granite window with chamfered mullion. Although the rear faces south-west there are few windows and no obvious signs of blocked openings. Interior has surprisingly plain early features where they are exposed. The lower end room has a granite fireplace with replacement lintel and the crossbeam has a slight soffit chamfer with runout stops. Is it really as early as the C17? The hall fireplace has a granite ashlar back in the passage with a soffit-chamfered cornice but the actual fireplace is blocked by a C20 grate. The hall crossbeam is boxed in and the upper end oak plank-and-muntin screen is plastered over this side; only the plain-finished reverse is exposed in the inner room. The inner room has a plain chamfered crossbeam and the fireplace is all granite with a chamfered surround. A flight of stone newel stairs rise alongside. The joinery detail is C19 and C20. The roof is basically a replacement construction of circa 1924. Only the truss at the upper end of the hall survives and the lower part of it is buried in a first floor partition. Nevertheless it is probably C16. It has a cranked collar and is definitely smoke-blackened on the hall side at least, which indicates an original open hall-house heated by an open hearth fire. The small front garden is enclosed by late C19 low granite rubble boundary walls.

Listing NGR: SX6718887177

External Links

• Wikidata Q26439792

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