Description

HOLCOMBE ROGUS
ST 01 NW & ST 01 NE
4/90 & 5/90
- Ford Farmhouse
GV
II

Farmhouse. Early or mid C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, modernised
circa 1960. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stacks topped with
C20 brick; concrete tile roof,formerly thatch.
Plan and development: formerly a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing
south-east. It is built down a gentle hillslope. Uphill at the left end an inner
room parlour has a projecting gable-end stack with a winder stair rising alongside
to rear. The hall has a large axial stack backing onto the site of the former
passage. The lower passage partition has been removed and the passage and small
unheated service end room (probably a dairy) have been united.
Since most of the roof structure has been replaced it is not possible to determine
the early development of the house in detail. Nevertheless it is clear that the
hall at least was open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The upper
hall partition may be an original low partition screen. The hall fireplace was
probably inserted in the mid or late C16. The inner room end was rebuilt, possibly
enlarged, in the early C17 as a parlour, and the hall was floored over at the same
time and thereafter became the kitchen. In the C20 the passage front doorway was
blocked, passage and service end dairy united, and a fireplace inserted into the
back of the hall stack. Also a new front doorway was inserted into the parlour. At
the back of the former passage the present stairs are C20 but maybe replacing a C16
o- C17 one. C20 single storey rear extension. Otherwise the house is 2 storeys.
Exterior: irregular 4-window front of C20 casements, those on the first floor are
iron-framed without glazing bars. The present front doorway is left of centre and
contains a C20 plank door behind a contemporary gabled porch. The original passage
doorway is blocked by a window right of centre but there are stone steps below it.
Roof is gable-ended to left and half-hipped to right.
Interior: parlour and hall are separated by an oak-framed partition containing a
shoulder-headed doorway. Both rooms have similar crossbeams with deep hollow-
chamfered soffits and step stops. The hall fireplace is blocked. The parlour has a
stone rubble fireplace with a soffit-chamfered oak lintel. The headbeam of the
lower passage partition (formerly an oak plank-and-muntin screen) remains. On the
first floor there is an oak Tudor arch doorway from the main stair landing to the
hall bedchamber. The roof was replaced circa 1960 except for one side-pegged
jointed cruck truss. It is smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire.

Listing NGR: ST0500318161

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26594978

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

• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living