Description

TAWSTOCK
SS 52 NE
4/67 Wick Farmhouse (formerly listed
- as Wick)
11.6.75
GV II*

Farmhouse. Probably early C15 origins remodelled and extended in 1638. Rendered
stone rubble and cob. Thatch roof. Rendered stacks at each gable end and tall
lateral hall stack with off-sets and clay pot. Half-hipped thatch roof to rear
dairy wing.
3-room and through-passage former open-hall house plan with 2 adjoining service
wings to rear of inner room and hall, the latter added in C17, the former possibly
C18. C19 single storey kitchen wing to rear of lower end.
2 storeys. 5-window range. Principally C19 fenestration, 3-light casements to each
floor except for two 2-light casements above and to right of doorway, all 6 panes
per light to upper storey, 8 panes per light to ground floor. C20 porch with hipped
slate roof. 4-panelled inner door. One 2-light and one 4-light C17 chamfered
timber mullion window to rear upper storey of main range.
Interior: good quality early C17 interior fittings largely belying earlier origins.
Lower end fireplace has dressed stone jambs, large brick bread oven and chamfered
bar-stopped lintel. Flagstone floor. Small 2-light chamfered mullion window to
rear. Hall/through passage plank and muntin screen, 7 panels wide, the rear end
panels renewed, with scroll-stopped chamfered muntins which have scratch mouldings
on the hall side. Stop-chamfered cross ceiling beams to hall. Ovolo-moulded
scroll-stopped fireplace lintel set under a higher chamfered lintel with diagonal
stops. Dressed stone jambs. Hall/inner room ovolo moulded door surround with bar-
scroll stops to each side. Ovolo-moulded door surround to doorway between inner
room and service wing. Inner room fireplace has dressed stone jambs and ovolo-
moulded scroll-stopped lintel with carved initials and date RW 1638 EW. Staircase
to rear of hall, probably early C18 with original wooden treads, moulded handrail
and turned newels. Stop-chamfered cross-beam to dairy wing. Ovolo-moulded door
surround at head of stairs with triple-decoration above scroll-stopped durns.
Chamfered bar-stopped door surround to chamber over inner room which has scroll-
stopped ovolo-moulded fireplace lintel. Sections of moulded plasterwork cornice to
each end of chamber over hall, to small dressing room adjoining and to rear
passageway with stop-chamfered doorway at end to chamber over lower end. Most of
the window openings retain their interior timber sills.
Roof structure: impressively complete primitive probably early C15 roof structure
over hall and lower end consisting of 3 raised cruck trusses with principals
virtually square on section with square set ridge purlin to Alcock type H apex and 2
tiers of purlins unusually only resting on the backs of the trusses. All the roof
members, including the underside of the thatch are thickly encrusted with soot and
there is rare surviving evidence of a louvre with short timber board slightly raked
to the main pitch of the roof to front side, set close to the ridge. The rafters
directly opposite to the rear side have been replaced suggesting that the louvre
originally straddled the ridge. Closed cob partition between hall and inner room
rising to apex of roof is smoke-blackened on hall side. Although the truss over the
inner room has been replaced in C17 with one principal formerly with threaded
purlins and ridge purlin, the other principal replaced in the C20, it is highly
probable that the house was originally open to the roof from end to end, the inner
room ceiled first followed by the hall and lower end in the mid to the late C17, a
process which would partly account for the extremely pronounced smoke-blackening
over this end. 2 C17 trusses over rear dairy wing with 2 tiers of trenched purlins,
diagonally set ridge purlin with morticed and tenoned collars. This is a
particularly impressive farmhouse with an unusual and largely intact medieval roof
structure and also fine quality C17 work.

Listing NGR: SS5703327169

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17532535

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)