Description

WALKHAMPTON SX 57 SW 13/141 Welltown Farmhouse 14.6.52 - II*

Farmhouse. Circa 1500 with extensive C17 alterations and additions. Granite rubble walls, gable ended slate and asbestos slate roof of differing ridge height and pitches. 3 stone stacks: one axial to left-hand range of granite ashlar with tapering granite cap which has moulded rim. Axial to right-hand range is partly rendered stack with dripcourses. At right gable-end is late C20 rebuilt stack. Plan: Complex development of plan, open to various interpretations. At present the house is T-shaped: the stem of the 'T' consists of a shippon to the left with independent access and a large room to its right heated by a stack axial to the shippon, and with a staircase and entrance lobby to its right. The range at right angles is entered through this lobby and also has an external doorway in its front gable end. Both doors lead into a room heated by an axial fireplace and to the right of this room is a small dairy. Behind these 2 rooms is a large room extending the width of them both with a fireplace at its right-hand end. To the rear of this room is a small unheated room to the left and a staircase to the right. Judging from the evidence of a smoke-blackened truss above the principal room in the stem of the 'T' this range is the earliest and this room was an open hall with central hearth. The rear wall is continuous across the shippon suggesting this was the original lower end with a passage adjoining the hall by whose front door the shippon is now entered. It is uncertain, however, whether, this has always been a shippon since on its rear wall it has a granite mullion window, apparently in situ, and documentary evidence and the lack of an obvious kitchen in the house suggest there may have been a fireplace in this room. What, if anything, originally existed at the higher end of the hall is also unclear due to the substantial C17 addition. The intials carved on the hall fireplace are of Robert and Grace Atwill who occupied the house from the late C16 to the early C17. This gives an approximate date to the flooring of the hall and remodelling of the house and - by inference from a similar style fireplace in the new range - at least part of the addition at the higher end. This addition took the form of a cross wing but whether it dates completely from the early C17 or whether it developed in stages throughout that century is more conjectural. The 2 larger heated rooms, from their features would appear to be coeval but their purpose is unclear. The larger room to the rear has a higher quality fireplace but it has an early oven which the plain fireplace in the front room does not have possibly the rear room adopted the function of hall and the original hall became a parlour but there is still no obvious kitchen. Another puzzling factor is that the roof over these 2 rooms in the wing runs in opposite directions. The small service room and staircase at the rear of the larger room, if not contemporary, are not later than mid C17 and the stairs are a transitional form from newel to framed staircase. Probably the most recent part of the house is the dairy adjoining the principal front room of the wing but this is unlikely to be later than late C17. On the 1st floor, until the earlier C20 there was no access from one half of the house to the other suggesting that an early staircase must have existed in the original range when it was floored, but also raising questions of occupancy by a divided household. Modifications were made to the house in the C19 when the lower end was probably partially rebuilt and converted to a shippon with the passage removed and access to the hall blocked. A new front door was inserted at the higher end of the hall and a small entrance lobby created with a framed staircase inserted at the rear. Otherwise the plan remains unaltered since the C17. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 3 window front with shippon to left slightly recessed and projecting gabled wing to right. The central section has a later C19 4-pane sash on each floor with a small single light early C20 casement to the right on the 1st floor and open fronted C19 porch below with C19 plank door behind. The shippon has a plank door at its right end with a loading door above and window to the left. The wing has 2 late C20 casements with glazing bars on its inner face and one on the 1st floor of its gable end. Below is a C19 gabled porch with C20 plank and glazed door. At the right-hand side of the gable the roof extends in a catslide of over dairy which has a single light window with chamfered granite frame on its front wall. The rear elevation has 2 3-light circa early C17 hollow-chamfered granite mullion windows with hoodmoulds on the ground floor. The right-hand one has been blocked. Small C19 stair-light with small panes at left-hand end of on 1st floor. The 2-window inner face of the wing has late C20 small paned 2-light caesments except for the ground floor window to the right which is larger with early C20 casement which has been inserted into a mullion window frame and still has hoodmould above. The window to its left also shows signs of granite framing. The opposite outer face of the wing, forming the right-hand end of the house has a gable to the right with catslide dairy roof to the left. The right-hand window, at an intermediate level for the stairs, has chamfered granite framing. Below to its left, is a single granite-framed light. At the centre on the ground floor is a 3- light granite mullion window whose central mullion has been removed. The window above it - a 2-light C20 small-paned casement - also0 has granite framing. The dairy window to the left on the ground floor is probably C18 2-light with central square section mullion and no glass. This side of the house is built into the bank with its lower windows at ground level. Good interior with features from various periods, some of a high quality. The inserted fireplace in the hall is of granite with hollow and roll moulding to Jambs and lintel which is slightly cambered and has the roll moulding rising in a raised semi-circle with the intials "R.A. G.A." carved in high relief. An almost indentical fireplace survives in the larger room of the wing but with a stylized plant instead of initials in the semi-circle. The room has 2 C17 square-headed wooden doorframes with ovolo-mould leading to the adjoining service room and staircase. The staircase has stone treads for the first flight, then wood, rising around a solid core, and with a cupboard below lit by a small granite-framed window. The front room of the wing has a square-headed hollow chamfered granite fireplace. Adjoining it to the left is a chamfered 4-centered granite doorway and the room is entered from the lobby by a 4-centred granite doorway with roll moulding and foliage carved spandrels rebated in a roll-moulded frame. The 3 principal 1st floor rooms all have a granite-framed C17 fireplace, each different and the one at the rear of the wing has a similar carved lintel to the room below. There is a C17 doorframe leading from the chamber above the hall into that above the shippon. Roof: Over the original hall one smoke-blackened truss survives, of heavy scantling and well-finished, with curved morticed collar, diagonal ridge, morticed apex and trenched purlins. Over the larger rear room in the cross wing 2 C17 fairly rough trusses survive with mortices for threaded purlins and curved collars pegged a set slightly into the trusses. This building stands on an early site first mentioned in 1381 and continuously occupied by the Attwell Family (who took their name from the site) until about 1780. The Attwells rose to be gentry by the early C17 and were an arms-bearing family of some importance in the locality, making their money through mining. No doubt the rise of the family is reflected by the rise in status of the house in the early C17 and its high quality remodelling. The importance of this house lies in a combination of the survival of the medieval fabric (unusual in West Devon) and the remodelling of the building to small manor-house quality with a number of good C17 features. Equally remarkable is the fact that the unusual plan-form has been virtually unaltered since the C17 with no later additions.

Listing NGR: SX5410170050

External Links

• Wikidata Q17537423

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