Description

LUPPITT ST 10 NE 6/63 Stoneacre Farmhouse including barn - adjoining to the north-west and front garden walls - II* Farmhouse. Early to mid C16 with major C16 and C17 improvements with some minor C18 and C19 alterations. Local stone and flint rubble, plastered at the back, stone rubble stacks with plastered stone rubble chimneyshafts; corrugated iron roof, formerly thatch. Plan and development: L-plan farmhouse. The main block faces west and is built across the hillslope and it has a 4-room-and-through-passage plan. At the left (north) end is a small unheated inner room, probably a dairy or buttery originally. Next to it is the former hall and it has an axial stack backing onto the passage. The passage is now blocked by a C20 stair although there are still opposing front and back doorways. At the other side of the passage is a service end room with an axial stack backing onto the right (south) end room which is a storeroom. A 1-room plan block projects at right angles to rear of the inner room dairy/buttery. It has a large projecting lateral stack with oven housing on the outer (north) side. This is a house with a long and complex structural history. Moreover much of the early fabric is hidden behind C18 and C19 plaster making a definitive interpretation of the building impossible at present. Nevertheless the passage and service end section was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. Though not certain it seems likely that hall and inner room section was rebuilt around the mid C16, with a fireplace and chimney to the open hall and the inner room with a chamber over. In the early or mid C17 the service end and passage were floored over and the chimney stack inserted. The hall was also floored over about the same time and a kitchen block was added to rear of the inner room dairy/buttery. Thus, by the mid C17, with a rear block kitchen, the former hall would be the dining room and there was a former service end parlour. The inner room (north) end was extended a short distance either when the rear block was added or later. This short extension was also narrower with a canted rear corner containing windows on each floor. The present storage extension on the south end is C19 but there is evidence of a lower roofline showing that there was some service extension on the south end is C19 but there is evidence of a lower roofline showing that there was some service extension here already. The house is 2 storeys and the service/storeroom extension is open to the roof. Exterior: on the front there are 2 ground floor windows and one first floor window, all late C19 - early C20 casements with glazing bars. There were once more windows this side and their Beerstone jambs show. There are 3 front doorways. The central doorway is the main doorway, the former passage front doorway, contains a C19 plank door behind a gabled porch. To left a doorway into the inner room dairy/buttery and there is another to right into the storeroom; both contain C19 doors. A butt join shows between the main house and the storeroom. The roof is hipped to right and half-hipped to left. The rear and kitchen block contains C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars. Interior: is largely the result of apparently superficial C19 modernisations. The original layout remains and where early carpentry is exposed it is well-preserved. The crossbeam in the inner room (dairy/buttery) is boxed in and in both the hall and rear block kitchen no beams show and the fireplaces are blocked. The farmer reports a large Beerstone ashlar fireplace behind the C20 grate in the hall. In the service end parlour the crossbeams are plastered over but apparently have deep chamfers. The fireplace here is also blocked but its large size is obvious and part of its chamfered oak lintel can be seen in a cupboard. The roof of the main block is divided into 2 sections by the hall stack. To south, over the passage and service end parlour, the roof is original and comprises 2 uneven bays carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses; it and the surviving common rafters is heavily smoke- blackened from the original open hearth fire. The hall and inner room roof is 4 bays. The end fourth bay is associated with the extension but the rest is mid C16. The partition between the hall and inner room is an oak large-framed closed truss. The hall has a 2-bay roof carried on a side-pegged jointed cruck with chamfered arch braces. The left (north) side of the front garden is lined by a small probably C19 barn with opposing central doorways onto the threshing floor. In the C20 its loading hatches were converted to windows when it became an animal house. At the same time a suspended ceiling was inserted hiding the roof structure. The barn overlaps the north end of the farmhouse and the narrow space between the two has been roofed over to create a passage. The front and south side of the garden is enclosed by a probably C19 stone rubble wall. Stoneacre Farmhouse is an attractive farmhouse and it forms a good group with its traditional farm buildings including the linhay (q.v). When approached down the lane from the north the local stone buildings and various rooflines look particularly good. The owner's researches suggest that this might be the site of a pre-Reformation chantry.

Listing NGR: ST1636606653

External Links

• Wikidata Q17547444

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  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
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