Description

THROWLEIGH THROWLEIGH
SX 69 SE
1/250 Throwleigh Barton

GV II*

Large house. Early C16 with late C16 and C17 improvements and extensions,
refurbished in the mid C19, modernised circa 1980. Plastered granite stone rubble
with some cob; granite stacks with plastered brick chimney shafts; thatch roof.
Plan and development: Long main block facing south-east. The original house was a
larger than usual 3-room-and-through-passage plan house built down a slight slope
although there is no apparent evidence that it was ever a Dartmoor longhouse. At
the right end the inner room parlour has an end stack. The hall has an axial stack
backing onto the passage and there is a newel turret which once projected to rear
from the upper end of the hall. This stair is now enclosed within an early C17
kitchen block built at right angles to rear of the hall and with a gable end stack
and dairy outshot along the right side. There are the remains of a C17 bakehouse
with end stack on the right end of the parlour. The long service end has been this
long since at least the late C16 - early C17 and was divided into two in the mid C19
which provided a new parlour off the lower side of the passage and served by an
axial stack backing onto a stable at the left end. The house has been extensively
rebuilt since around the mid C17 and because of this the earlier development of the
house cannot be clearly worked out. Nevertheless it is very likely that the hall at
least was open to the roof. Now 2 storeys with outshots to rear of passage and
service end.
Exterior: Irregular 5-window front of C20 casements with glazing bars. The central
ground floor window occupies the chamfered granite frame of a C17 window with its
mullion removed. The passage front door is left of centre and it now contains a C20
part-glazed panelled door. The stable section at the left end is blind but the end
wall there contains a door with hayloft laoding hatch over. The roof is gable-
ended. The bakehouse at the right end is now a single storey structure with a glass
roof.
Good interior shows the work of all the main building phases. The passage contains
a C20 fibreglass copy of an oak Tudor doorway. The hall fireplace is probably late
C16; large and built of granite ashlar with a hollow-chamfered surround. The hall is
a large room and was probably floored in the C17 by an extraordinarily long axial
beam with roughly-finished soffit chamfers. The C17 kitchen to rear of the hall has
a granite fireplace with high soffit-chamfered oak lintel and it includes a side
oven. The cupboard to right has been converted from a walk-in curing chamber. The
crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with step stops. The parlour is also large. Its
fireplace is late C16 - early C17, built of granite ashlar with a broad bead-moulded
surround. The 3-bay ceiling is carried on 2 roughly-finished crossbeams. The
remains of the bakehouse include a large granite fireplace containing 2 ovens and a
soffit-chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam. On the lower side of the passage the
C19 parlour shows no carpentry detail and the fireplace now has a C20 grate. The
stable has a soffit-chamfered crossbeam with worn step stops indicating a late C16 -
early C17 construction. The joinery detail throughout the house is C19 and C20.
Stone newel stair from the hall to the first floor. A branch of wooden steps leads
off to a low round-headed oak doorframe to the chamber over the C17 kitchen. Here
tne 2-bay roof carried on a face-pegged jointed cruck wich slip tenon. It has a
pegged lap-jointed collar and threaded purlins. The oldest roof structure is that
over the inner room parlour. It is early C16, 2 bays with a truss of large
scantling timbers. It has a cranked collar and chamfered arch bracing and contains
the slots for missing windbraces. It is clean and has Alcock's apex type M. In the
late C16 - early C17 the truss was closed with large framing including a crank-
headed doorframe. At this time or later a granite fireplace was inserted into the
side of the parlour stack. The rest of the roof was replaced in the late Cl7 -early
C18 and comprises a series of A-frame trusses with pegged and spiked lap-jointed
collars.
The front garden is enclosed by a low C19 granite stone rubble wall with rounded
ashlar coping and including a pair of granite gate posts with rounded heads.
Throwleigh Barton is a most interesting house. It is larger and grander than most
C16 houses in the area. In the early C16 it had a large hall and large inner room
parlour. The arch-braced roof is also a very unusual feature in this area, a degree
of sophistication which must indicate an owner of higher-than-usual social status.

Listing NGR: SX6688890784

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17537562

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

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)