Description

SY 08 NE NEWTON POPPLEFORD HIGH STREET, AND HARPFORD Newton Poppleford 5/73 Southern Cross Guesthouse - including garden walls adjoining to north-west GV II

Guesthouse. Early C18, modernised in C19 and extended in C20. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stacks topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof, asbestos slate to C20 extension. The house faces onto the road to the south-east. The main block has a double depth plan. It has a central through passage with front and back rooms either side. The main domestic rooms were those on the front and served by end stacks. In fact it seems likely that this plan evolved from 2 or more main builds but this is difficult to prove at present. The most likely interpretation proposes an original L-shaped building comprising the front rooms and the left service room as a rear wing at right angles. The right service room has parallel roofs at right angles to the main block and appears to be separated from the front room by a mass wall. The gap between the 2 rear rooms behind the through passage was filled in later. In the C20 a 2-room block was added set well back from the front on the right (north-eastern) end on the same axis as the main block and only connected at ground floor level and, at the same time, a conservatory built in the angle of the end of the original house and front of the C20 extension. 2 storeys throughout. The main house has a regular but not symmetrical 3-window front of mostly C19 and C20 casements and including a horned 4-pane sash first floor left end. All the windows including those with glazing bars are given lattice patterns of leading. The front doorway is set left of centre and contains a late C19-early C20 part- glazed 4-panel door behind a contemporary gabled and tile-roofed porch. The roof is gable-ended to right and hipped to left. The rear elevation has a 2:1:1: front of C19 and d20 casements, most again with C20 lattice patterns of leading and some with glazing bars. The ends of all 3 roofs are hipped. On the right end of the front the conservatory is glass-walled with curving hipped roof. The C20 extension has a 2-window front also of leaded glass. The first floor windows are half dormers with the roof lifted over. The roof here is gable-ended. Interior appears to have the C18 structure basically intact with joinery detail from the C19 modernisation. The right room has a crossbeam with a broad soffit chamfer and no stops and a stone rubble fireplace with a roughly-finished oak lintel making a segmental arch. The left room has a 3-bay ceiling and the crossbeams are soffit- chamfered with runout stops. The framed crosswall between front and back rooms is here exposed. Both left end fireplaces are blocked by later grates. Roof not inspected. From each rear corner relatively high garden walls made up of the local large river cobbles extend north-westwards returning to meet and enclose the rear garden.

Listing NGR: SY0798889528

External Links

• Wikidata Q26499167

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