Red Doors Farmhouse Including Front Courtyard Wall Adjoining to North, Luppitt, Devon

Description

LUPPITT BEACON
ST 10 NE
6/68 Red Doors Farmhouse including
- front courtyard wall adjoining to
north
GV II*
Farmhouse. Early C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, thoroughly
refurbished circa 1975. Local stone and flint rubble including some sections of
cob; most is plastered; stone rubble stacks topped with C20 bricks; thatch roof.
Plan and development: L-plan house. The main block faces north and it has a 2-
room-and-through-passage plan. The large room to left (east) of the wide passage is
a parlour with an end stack and it once included a small buttery/dairy between the
main room and the passage. The partitions were removed circa 1975 to enlarge the
parlour. To right of the passage is the kitchen and it has an axial stack backing
onto a staircase between it and the passage. A 2-room plan rear block projects at
right angles to rear of the kitchen and it was thoroughly refurbished circa 1975.
This is a house with a long and complex structural history. The original early C16
part of the house is the passage and kitchen section of the main block. This was
thought to have a 2-room-and-through-passage plan. The present passage was an inner
room and floored over from the beginning. The rest was the hall; it was open to the
roof and heated by an open hearth fire. A passage is thought to have run across the
front of the inner room partition at this time although there is no obvious evidence
for a blocked front doorway in the exposed masonry of the front wall. (There is an
apparant straight join between the original section and the parlour extension). In
the mid or late C16 a large stack was inserted backing onto the putative original
passage (now occupied by the stair). This produced an unusually small hall which
was floored over in the late C16 - early C17. It may be that the rear block (or
part of it) was c16 but there is no positive evidence since all the carpentry detail
there was replaced circa 1975. The main block was enlarged in the early C17 when
the parlour was built with a buttery. At the same time the rest of the main block
was rearranged. The former inner room was converted to the present wide through-
passage, the putative former passage was disused and the stair was built in its
place, and the former hall was downgraded to serve as the kitchen. The function of
the rear block is unclear since it was so thoroughly renovated circa 1975. The end
stack there dates from this time. The rear block includes a lobby behind the
kitchen and it projects on the outside (west). This could have contained a
staircase or alternatively a carriageway from the road to the rear courtyard and
separating the main house from the rear block. If the latter were the case the
projection would have been a porch and the rear block a service wing.
The farmhouse is 2 storeys with an outshot on the left (east) end of the main block.
Exterior: the main block has an irregular 3-window front of C20 casements with
glazing bars. The passage front doorway is a little right of centre and it contains
a plank door behind a C20 gabled porch. The main roof is hipped both ends, steeply
so at the left end. The rear block is a little lower than the main block and it has
a 1:1:2 - window front (on the outer side) of C20 casements with glazing bars. The
roof is carried down over the projection and is hipped at the end.
Good Interior: the original inner room/present passage has an original chamfered
axial beam. The full height crosswall on the kitchen side is also original; large
oak framing over the remains of an oak plank-and-muntin screen. The roof over this
section is also original. It is 2 bays with a side-pegged jointed cruck of large
scantling with a cranked collar. There are hip crucks each end and both bays
contain single sets of curving windbraces. The original crosswall is not a closed
truss; it rises between the windbraces of the inner bay. The section over the
former inner room/present passage is clean whilst the rest is smoke-blackened from
the original open hearth fire.
The inserted hall/later kitchen fireplace is very large in relation to the size of
the room; it has Beerstone ashlar jambs, an oak lintel and chamfered surround. The
large oven in the back projects under the stairs; both were rebuilt in the C19 but
the arrangement has probably been the same since the early C17. The small hall has
half beams each end, both chamfered with pyramid stops.
The rest of the main block is early C17 and there is a solid wall (the original end
wall) between the two sections. The ground floor is now a single room although
disused mortices show that a small buttery and corridor past it occupied the end
nearest the passage and that the partitions were oak plank-and-muntin screens. The
parlour itself has a chamfered crossbeam and a good Beerstone ashlar fireplace with
oak lintel cut to a low Tudor arch and has a chamfered surround. Alongside to right
is a C20 stair which is probably a replacement of the original. On the first floor
there is said to be a blocked small Tudor arch headed fireplace. The roof here is
carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. All the rear block carpentry was
replaced circa 1975.
A tall plastered wall of cob on stone rubble footings projects forward from the
right end of the front screening the front courtyard from the lane.
Red Doors Farmhouse is a very attractive farmhouse, but more than that it is a very
interesting and most intriguing. The early C16 open hall house is built to a high
standard but is a very small if it is a complete house as the roof suggests. It
also forms part of a group of attractive buildings that make up the hamlet of
Beacon.

Listing NGR: ST1796005071

External Links

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