Description

WIDECOMBE-IN- SX 77 NW THE-MOOR 2/168 Great Dunstone Farmhouse including 23.8.55 gateposts, mounting block and wall surrounding front garden GV II Farmhouse. Late C16 or early C17 with added porch, cartshed and lean-tos at rear. Granite rubble. Thatched roof; additions at front slated, those at rear partly slated and partly covered with corrugated asbestos. Large stone chimney on each gable, that on left rendered and with tapered top; that on right projects with offsets and has plain top. 2-room plan with through-passage, the left-hand room the larger (probably the former hall). Large added porch in front, believed to have had wool chamber in upper storey. Large combined porch and stair turret at rear (now disguised by added lean-tos); seems to be original. The plan is highly unusual in Devon for its date in having a gable-fireplace at the upper end of the hall. It may have been altered, but it is not clear in what way; it never seems to have been a longhouse. 2 storeys; additions mostly single-storeyed. 3-window front; C19 casements with glazing-bars. The ground-storey windows have drip-stones, that on left also having an ovolo-moulded wood lintel with run-out stop. Porch, altered in late C19, has segmental arch of red brick to outer doorway and a flat red brick arch to window above. In left-hand side-wall, under the eaves, are 7 pigeon-holes with small slate perches in front of them. Family memory recalls an external stone stair to left of doorway, leading to wool chamber. Garden wall, gateposts and mounting block probably late C19. Wall is of granite rubble with original iron railing on top. Monolithic granite gateposts, having on the garden side of left post a mounting block leading to a small gate on top of the wall. At right-hand end of garden is a stone cartshed with gabled roof. In right-hand side-wall of house, in second storey, is a 2-light wood-mullioned window, probably of late C17 or early C18. Interior: ground-storey room to right of passage has fireplace with chamfered and straight-cut stopped wood lintel; the right-hand side has been widened, the stop having been cut away by the present owner. Old wooden bench along opposite wall. Upper-floor beams in both ground-storey rooms chamfered with scroll-stops. Former outer doorway at rear of passage has rectangular wood frame with hollow and ovolo mouldings having urn stops at the foot; door has heavy wrought-iron strap-hinges, possibly of the same date, but the planks have been renewed in C19. At stair-head is a pair of wood door-frames with flat heads, ovolo-moulded and with scroll-stops; right-hand doorway has its original studded plank door with wrought-iron strap- hinges having fleur-de-lys terminals. In side wall of landing is a doorway with re- set cranked wooden arch. Some C19 plank doors with strap-hinges in bedrooms. Original roof survives with 5 clean trusses of high quality having 3 tiers of threaded purlins and a threaded ridge. All have cranked collars, but whereas 3 have tenoned joints with the principal rafters, 2 (apparently of the same date) have shaped ends halved into the principals. All the trusses have short vertical struts tenoned into their feet and partly buried in the wall. Common rafters survive. Both they and the trusses have gouged carpenter's marks; the trusses are numbered 1 to 5 from the left-hand end. None of the trusses has partition marks, but the stone wall to left of the through-passage rises straight up to the underside of truss No. 3. Above the lower end and passage the roof-space always seems to have been lofted, whereas over the hall the bedroom was ceiled at the middle tier of purlins, just below the collar. An outbuilding (separately listed) close to the house contains a fireplace and oven, and may have originated as a detached kitchen.

Listing NGR: SX7147675580

External Links

• Wikidata Q26551409

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