The Barton Including Service Rooms Adjoining to the North, Spreyton, Devon

Description

SX 69 NE SPREYTON SPREYTON

1/277 The Barton including service rooms
adjoining to the north
22.2.67

GV II*

Farmhouse. C16 with major C17 improvements, modernised in the early-mid C19.
Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble and cob stacks topped with C19
and C20 brick; thatch roof, replaced by slate over the service rooms.
Plan and development: U-shaped building built on level ground. The main block
faces south and it is the historic core of the farmhouse. It has a 3-room-and-
through-passage plan. Its plan now is essentially that of the late C17. The left
end room is a parlour on the lower side of the passage and has a projecting gable-
end stack. Since there is no sign of another main stair the present one blocking
the rear of the passage was probably built in the C17. The hall has a large
projecting rear lateral stack. In the late C17 it was the dining room. The large
inner room has a large gable-end stack (backing onto the crosswing) and in the late
C17 was the kitchen. A crosswing on the right (east) side was new built in the late
C17. The narrow front room behind the inner room/kitchen stack which also projects
forward a short distance was a dairy and the room behind (which is wider and
overlaps the inner room) was a bakehouse with a large cob stack to rear. A service
stair alongside the kitchen fireplace leads up to the chambers above. The bakehouse
forms the east side of a narrow rear courtyard. The north side is bade up of C17
and C18 service rooms and includes a pump house and former carriageway entrance from
the road. The earlier development of the main block is difficult to work out. Much
of the C16 and early C17 fabric clearly survives but not enough is exposed for its
certain interpretation. Nevertheless it seems likely that the house was originally
some form of open hall house but the roofspace is inaccessible and therefore it is
not known whether it was originally heated by an open hearth fire or whether the
hall stack is an original feature. The hall was floored in the early or mid C17.
The ground floor oak screens also suggest that the room off the lower side of the
passage was formerly a service room and that the inner room was then a parlour.
House and service wing are all 2 storeys.
Exterior: main block has a regular but not symmetrical 3-window front. The first
floor windows are C20 casements without glazing bars but those on the ground floor
are late C17 large oak-framed 2-light windows with flat-faced mullions and contain
rectangular panes of leaded glass. The passage front doorway is left of centre and
now contains a part-glazed C20 door. The roof is gable-ended to left and hipped to
right. The eaves are carried down at the right end over the projecting dairy. The
right (east) side of the late C17 crosswing contains more oak-framed, flat-faced
mullion casement windows containing rectangular panes of leaded glass and most also
have vertical iron glazing bars. Here they are original. The back of the main
block is blind but it does contain some windows blocked in the late C17 and one at
least (ground floor hall) still retains its early C17 oak frame with ovolo-moulded
mullions. The north (service room) wing faces onto the narrow rear courtyard and
the central part is open-fronted and open to the roof; this was the former
carriageway entrance.
Good interior: only the main block has features earlier than the late C17 but
even here a lot of the detail is of that date. The lower end parlour moreover was
refurbished in the early C19; its fireplace is blocked and no carpentry detail is
exposed. The passage is lined both sides with oak plank-and-muntin screens;
chamfered muntins on the hall side. Any stops are hidden by the stairs and, before
the stairs were built both seem to have had more than one doorway. The hall is
lined with small field panelling. This maybe early C17 but seems to relate to the
late C17 refurbishment of the room. If so the only features here not late C17 are
the 2 early C17 moulded oak crossbeams, the stops of which are hidden by the box
cornice. The early C17 rear window is blocked by a cupboard with shaped shelves and
fielded panel doors. The front window (like that in the inner room/kitchen) has
fielded panel reveals. Hall fireplace has a timber bolection-moulded chimneypieces
and the panel above is flanked by panelled pilasters. The oak plank-and-muntin
screen at the upper end of the- hall is exposed in the inner room/kitchen; it is late
C16-early C17, its muntins chamfered with diagonal step stops over an oak bench.
The 2 crossbeams here are contemporary (soffit-chamfered with step stops) but the
fireplace is blocked. Good late C17 cupboard with panelled doors in rear wall. The
floor here is flagged. Several late C17 panelled doors around the house. Roof is
not accessible but the bases of some presumably C16 side-pegged jointed crucks show
on the first floor. The main partitions here may contain more plank-and-muntin
screens. First floor also contains late C17 joinery detail, notably a little
damaged built-in hanging cupboard (wardrobe) in the kitchen chamber and a small
cupboard with its panelled door hung on butterfly hinges in the hall chamber.
The bakehouse contains a massive stone rubble fireplace with soffit-chamfered oak
lintel and an oven. Plain-chamfered axial beam of large scantling and roof of A-
frame trusses with lap-jointed collars set onto vertical wall posts. Rear block has
plain carpentry detail and roof of A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars.
This is an interesting and well-preserved house alongside the churchyard of the
Church of St. Michael (q.v). It has been little modernised since the C19. Indeed
much has not been altered since the late C17. The ceilings on ground and first
floors are unusually high which must indicate a C16 house of high status.

Listing NGR: SX6971196740

External Links

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