Description

TAWSTOCK
SS 52 NE
4/56
- Lower Birbrook Farmhouse
25.2.65 II
Farmhouse. Late C15 or early C16 with late C16 remodelling. Rendered stone and
cob. Asbestos slate roof with gable ends. Rendered stack at left end and tall
front lateral hall stack with offsets and tapered cap, heightened in brick.
3 room and through-passage, former open hall house with stair turret enclosed in C19
rear outshuts with tiled roofs.
2 storeys. 3 window range. C19/C20 fenestration. 2 light casement 2 panes per
light on each floor to left of porch with slated pentice roof butting into stack
with 4 panelled door, the upper ends glazed. 2 light casement 6 panes per light
over hall casement of 3 lights 2 panes per light. Upper end which is recessed
slightly has 2 light casements on each floor, 2 panes per light above, 6 panes per
light below.
Interior Axial chamfered ceiling beams to inner room and hall, the latter with
hollow step stops. Jowled heads to the jambs to the hall/inner room doorway, the
arched lintel having been removed. Creamery niche with small cupboard to right
above integral bench which runs round into the front window recess. C19 slate dairy
fittings intact to rear outshut. Chamfered door surround with scroll stops to stair
turret. Original dog leg staircase with wide treads and stair rail with moulded
handrail, splat balusters with bar stops to the tops of arris arns and chamfered
scroll-stopped newels. Said to be three moulded plasterers marks to chamber over
lower end partition wall. Roof structure over lower end replaced in C20. Over the
hall is a jointed cruck truss with steeply cranked morticed and tenoned collar with
threaded purlins and ridge purlin. Closed lath and plaster partition to lower end
of hall. The hall/inner room partition also rises as a full height partition to a
closed truss with principals of much lighter scantling lapped to form and X apex
with a thin morticed and tenoned collar. The timbers over the hall and inner room
are all heavily smoke-blackened and it seems probable that the house was formerly
open to the roof from end to end, with a phased insertion of floors, the higher
floor level to the chamber over the hall suggesting the latter was the last to be
ceiled.

Listing NGR: SS5767525716

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26552616

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

• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)