Description

WIDECOMBE-IN- SX 77 NW THE-MOOR 2/162 Dunstone Manor

GV II

Formerly known as Dunstone Court. House, formerly a longhouse. Late medieval with minor additions, probably of C18 and C19. Granite rubble, covered with roughcast on south side. Asbestos-slated roof. On ridge, off-centre to east, a large rendered chimneystack with thatch weatherings (heating former hall); shaft rebuilt C20. Another rendered stack, also old and with stone weatherings, on upper (east) gable. C20 rendered stacks on west gable and in centre of south wall. 3-room and through-passage plan with hall stack backing on to passage; unusually large inner room with early fireplace. Former shippon, to west of passage, converted into 2 rooms; passage enlarged on this side to insert staircase. Added wing at right-angles to north side of inner room. 2 storeys, although the whole main range must have been single-storeyed originally. 5-window south front, facing garden; all windows C20. The front wall of hall and inner room breaks forward slightly and there is a further gabled projection (added perhaps in C18) in front of the hall. The ground-storey window of this projection has a chamfered granite dripstone above it. To right there is a similar dripstone over the inner-room window (possibly a former doorway) and, overlapping it to right, a further dripstone, probably relating to a blocked window. North front has a complete set of C20 plastic windows. Door to through-passage has a lean-to stone porch. West gable (of former shippon) is known to have had a ventilation slit in upper storey, now replaced by a window. Interior: through-passage is cobbled. Rear of hall stack is of painted granite ashlar with a worn chamfered plinth. Old plank door into hall. Latter has large fireplace with chamfered granite lintel and monolithic right jamb, on top of which is a rounded granite corbel with a very slight projection. Left jamb rebuilt; in this side is an old bread oven with round-arched granite opening having a shallow granite shelf in front. At the back of the fireplace, on the right-hand side, is a smaller oven, known within living memory as the cake oven; it has a stone opening with slightly curved top. Upper floor beams are chamfered, one of them having an unusually deep and angled scroll-stop; chamfered joists, some with step-stops, some with straight-cut stops. At upper end is a stud-and-panel screen (the only one known in Widecombe Parish); the studs are very lightly chamfered, the chamfer fading away without a stop at the bottom. At the left-hand end, apparently of a different build, is a straight-headed, chamfered doorway, the left jamb with a diagonal-cut stop. At the right-hand end, where the wall has been cut away to insert the bay, is one end of an old wooden bench which may originally have extended in front of the screen. The inner room has no upper-floor beam, but simply plain joists running lengthways. Gable-fireplace (blocked) is large with a wood lintel and monolithic granite right jamb. The north wall adjacent to the wing has been removed and replaced with a straight flight of stairs, of which the 3 lowest steps are of granite; old plank doors top and bottom, with wrought-iron strap-hinges having spade-terminals. There is a similar door between the rooms over hall and inner room. The latter has a small gable-fireplace with rounded back and plain wood lintel. The roof has 3 smoke-blackened medieval trusses with through-purlins and ridge, and cambered collars; many of the common rafters survive. There is a tie- beam truss over the hall and 2 open trusses to the west, one built into the hall stack and the other over the former shippon; the feet of the last 2 are concealed. The tie-beam truss presents a problem of interpretation. It is infilled with cob and stone above the collar, and always appears to have been so; the underside is sooted at the apex, but this may be the result of the cob shrinking and letting in the smoke. The infill, however, appears to be blackened on the hall side only, although the truss itself and the timbers over the inner room are plainly sooted. The truss over the shippon was not inspected, but was examined in 1974. The old roof timbers are now protected by a secondary C20 roof. The lower end of the house, which has no visible features, was in non-domestic use and known as the shippon within living memory. Sources: information from the present owners, Mr and Mrs Brown, and from Miss E Gawne, 1974, report by M Laithwaite.

Listing NGR: SX7167575782

External Links

• Wikidata Q26534549

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Recommended Books

• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)