Description

PLYMTREE ST 00 SE 3/120 Clyst William Barton Farmhouse - II -

Farmhouse. Early C16 with major later C16, C17 and early C18 improvements, modernised and enlarged in 1861 according to the date plaque. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; cob, stone rubble and brick stacks topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof. Plan and development: L-plan farmhouse. The main block faces south-west and has a 4-room-and-through-passage plan. The small unheated left (north-west) end room is now used as the kitchen but was formerly a service room, probably a dairy or buttery. Next to it is the inner room, the former kitchen, with projecting front lateral cob stack. (In fact the left end of the house is built out flush with the front of the stack.) The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage. At the right (south-east) end is a lower end parlour with an end stack. A second parlour was added in 1861 projecting forward in front of the old parlour; it has an outer lateral stack. This is a multi-phase farmhouse. Part of the original roof survives over the passage and lower end parlour and it indicates that the original house was open to the roof for the most part, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. The inner room end may have been floored from the beginning but it has been rebuilt since. The hall chimneystack was inserted in the mid - late C16 and the lower end was probably floored over at the same time. The hall was floored over in the mid C17. Also the inner room end was rebuilt and enlarged to provide kitchen and dairy/buttery in the mid C17 and the lower end was probably converted to a parlour at the same time. There is some evidence of modernisation in the early C18 and more modernisation associated with the building of the 1861 parlour crosswing. The farmhouse is 2 storeys. Exterior: irregular 2:1 - window front. The main block has C20 casements without glazing bars and the front end of the crosswing has a first floor C19 6-pane sash (there are more on the side) over a C19 French window with a hood on shaped brackets. The passage front doorway is alongside the crosswing and it contains a C19 6-panel door behind a C20 gabled porch. The main roof is hipped each end and the crosswing roof is also hipped. The 1861 date plaque is set in the crosswing chimneyshaft. Interior: the crosswing has no features earlier than 1861. The lower end parlour was refurbished at the same time; the beams are boxed in and the fireplace has a C19 chimneypiece. However a cupboard here is probably C18; it has fielded panel doors on H-hinges. The hall fireplace has Beerstone ashlar panelled cheeks and an oak lintel with its soffit hacked back a little. The crossbeam here and the former kitchen axial beam both have deep chamfers with scroll stops. The kitchen fireplace has been relined with C19 brick and has a plain oak lintel. The former dairy/buttery has 2 chamfered axial beams. The original roof survives over the passage and lower end parlour. It is carried on side-pegged jointed crucks. The whole structure including the purlins, common rafters and underside of the original thatch is smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire. The rest of the main block roof is carried on C18 A-frame trusses with pegged and spiked lap-jointed collars and X-apexes. These trusses also have carpenter's assembly marks. There are 3 farmhouses close to one another here, this one, Middle Clyst William Farmhouse (q.v) and Little Clyst William Farmhouse (q.v), and all are well-preserved and have late medieval origins.

Listing NGR: ST0692802822

External Links

• Wikidata Q26390326

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Recommended Books

• 
  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)