Description

SX 7087
6/154

CHAGFORD
NEW STREET, Chagford
No 47

GV
II

House, formerly 2 cottages but was originally built as a single house. Early C16
with major late C16 and C17 improvements, divided into cottages in C19, reunited and
modernised circa 1980. The older parts of the walls are coursed blocks of dressed
granite but much has been rebuilt in granite stone rubble; granite stacks with
granite ashlar chimney shafts; slate roof (formerly thatch).
Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house built along the street
and facing east. There is a small unheated inner room at the left (southern) end.
The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage and the service end room has an
end stack. The original house was apparently open to the roof throughout, divided by
low partition screens and heated by an open hearth fire. In the later C16 and C17
the house was progressively floored leaving the hall till last. The hall fireplace
was inserted in the late C16. In the C19 the service end room was divided off as a
separate cottage and then given its stack, and it was reunited circa 1980. Site of
original stair or stairs is not known. 2 storeys with single storey outshots across
rear.
Exterior: Irregular 5-window front of C20 horned 4-pane sashes. Most have timber
lintels but the two ground floor right have C19 segmental arches of granite
voussoirs. The left end one is blocking the C19 cottage doorway. The front passage
doorway is set a little right of centre and contains a plank door circa 1980. The
roof butts those of the adjoining houses.
Good interior of a house with a long and complex structural history. The oldest part
of the house is the roof. It is 4 bays and carried on 3 raised true cruck trusses
with slightly cambered collars. It is smoke-blackened from end to end indicating
that the original house was all open to the roof, divided by low partitions and
heated by an open hearth fire. The hall-inner room partition may well be one of the
original low partition screens. It is an oak plank-and-muntin screen, the muntins
chamfered with worn (maybe step) stops, and it contains shoulder-headed doorway.
The inner room end was probably the first to be floored over but the ceiling
structure there has been replaced at a higher level. Nevertheless the first floor
chamber evidently jettied out into the upper end of the open hall, its framed
crosswall surviving on the first floor and filling the old truss there. The ceiling
of the service end and passage also appears to be a replacement. The truss this end
was also once filled with large framing and wattle and daub but is now open and the
cruck feet have been cut away. (The truss now rests on oak corbels). The hall stack
was probably inserted in the late C16. It contains a large granite fireplace with
chamfered surround and side oven. The relieving arch over the granite ashlar lintel
now shows on the first floor. The hall was floored over in the early or mid C17
using half beams each end, both moulded with bar-step stops. The C19 service end
fireplace was rebuilt circa 1980 with a new granite lintel.
This is an interesting urban late medieval hall-house which also forms one of a group
of listed buildings along the western side of New Street.

Listing NGR: SX7011187273

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26595104

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

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6