Description

SX 68 NE CHAGFORD

3/27 Great Frenchbeer Farmhouse 20.2.52 - II

Farmhouse, former Dartmoor longhouse. Probably C16 origins but extensively rebuilt in the early of mid C17, refurbished in early C20, modernised 1986. Mostly plastered granite stone rubble but some of the lower parts of the walls include large blocks of dressed granite; timber-framed and weather-boarded upper storey to the outshots; granite stacks, one with its original granite ashlar chimney shaft, the others plastered brick; house has thatched roof, shippon and outshots have slate roofs. Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan longhouse built down a slope facing south-east with the inner room parlour on the uphill left (south-western) end. It has an end stack with a newel stair alongside. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage. The shippon is on the downhill end and part of it has been taken by a dairy. There are 2-storey outshots across the back of the main house. These might well be as early as the C17 but the upper storey was added in circa 1910. The house probably began as an open hall house in the late medieval period but the C17 refurbishment was so thorough that it must be regarded as a single build house and has been 2 storeys throughout since then. Exterior: irregular 4-window front of mostly late C19-early C20 casements with glazing bars. However, in the early C20, a granite 2-light window with chamfered mullion was put into the inner room and another to the chamber above, the latter with an eyebrow over. At the same time a doorway was inserted alongside and it contains a plank door. The original front passage doorway with soffit-chamfered lintel is right of centre and it too contains a plank door. Alongside to left is a C19 oven projection. At the shippon end there is a roughly central cow-door flanked by slit windows. In fact the left slit window is in the blocking of the original cow-door. First floor hayloft loading hatch towards the right end. The roof is gable-ended to left and hipped to right. Original drain hole in right end wall. Interior: is largely intact. The hall has a 3-bay ceiling on soffit-chamfered crossbeams with step stops. The granite fireplace has ashlar sides and lintel with a chamfered surround. It is unusually shallow. The side oven is lined (or relined) with brick. At the upper end of the hall there is an oak plank-and-muntin screen. The headbeam is soffit-chamfered and scroll-stopped over each panel and the muntins are moulded. It is the same both sides and there is still an oak bench fixed to it on the hall side. The crossbeam in the parlour is the same as those in the hall. The fireplace here is granite ashlar with a soffit-moulded lintel which is not completed down the jambs. On the lower side of the passage the granite wall there includes a low doorway to the dairy. The shippon end has 3 roughly-finished crossbeams. The cow stalls are C20. The roof over the shippon is late C19 or early C20 and made up of A-frames with nailed collars. The rest of the roof is inaccessible but is thought to be C17 A-frame trusses.

Listing NGR: SX6750985816

External Links

• Wikidata Q26459494

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Recommended Books

• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)