Description

SX 78 NW CHAGFORD

4/29 Higher Horselake Farmhouse

22.2.67
GV II*

Farmhouse. Late C15-early C16, improved in later C16 and C17 with a mid C17
extension, modernised in 1982. Granite stone rubble laid to rough courses with large
roughly-dressed quoins; granite stacks with their original granite ashlar chimney
shafts; thatch roof, corrugated iron to outshots.
Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house built across a
hillslope and the rear is terraced into it. It faces north-east with a small
unheated service room at the left (south-eastern) end. The hall has a large axial
stack backing onto the passage. Projecting rear newel turret at lower end of hall.
Inner room parlour at right (north-western) end has an end stack with newel stair
rising alongside the fireplace. In fact the house began as a 2-room-and-through-
passage plan house, open to the roof from end to end and heated by an open hearth
fire. Through the later C16 and C17 the hall fireplace was inserted and the house
progressively floored. In the mid C17, probably at the same time the hall was
floored, the parlour was added. It is now 2 storeys throughout with secondary
outshots across the rear.
Exterior: irregular 4-window front of C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars, those
on the first floor rising into the eaves. The front passage doorway is set left of
centre in a segmental-headed arch. The oak doorframe is probably C17 but is mostly
covered over. The door itself is also probably C17; a plank door with strap hinges
and oak lock housing. Secondary doorway to inner room at right end contains C19
plank door. The straight join shows between the original house and the C17 parlour
extension. Roof is half-hipped to left and gable-ended to right.
Interior: the oldest feature in the house is the late C15 - early C16 roof
structure over the original part of the house (the hall, passage and service room).
It is 3 bays and constructed of timbers of unusually large scantling. The left of
the 2 trusses is completely exposed. The front principal is a raised true cruck and
the rear principal is a raised face-pegged jointed cruck. The lower sections of the
right (hall) truss are plastered over although the curving shape indicates similar
cruck constructions. Both have cambered collars and, at their apex, a yoke carrying
a square set ridge (Alcock's apex type H). There is a hip cruck at the service end
and single sets of trenched purlins. The whole structure is thoroughly smoke-
blackened indicating that the original house was open to the roof, divided by low
partitions and heated by an open hearth fire.
The hall stack was probably inserted in the late C16-early C17. It contains a large
granite fireplace with a plain oak lintel. The hall crossbeam is now boxed in and no
carpentry detail is exposed in the passage or service room. The parlour extension is
wholly mid C17. At the upper end of the hall is an oak plank-and-muntin screen of
this date but only exposed on the parlour side; the muntins are chamfered with
scroll-nick stops and each has a central vertical recessed strip. The granite
fireplace has an ovolo-moulded and runout stopped oak lintel and an inserted C19
oven. The crossbeam here is also boxed in. This parlour end has a 2-bay roof
carried on a clean A-frame truss with pegged lap-jointed collar.
An important and attractive Dartmoor farmhouse with its late medieval roof virtually
complete. It also forms part of a group with its associated farmbuildings which are
also listed.
Source: manuscript notes, photographs and measured ground floor plan by Eric Mercer
and S Collier dated 1976 in NMR.

Listing NGR: SX7196686530

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17537510

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: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)