Description

BONDLEIGH BONDLEIGH SS 60 SE 6/14 Bondleigh Barton GV II*

Farmhouse. Circa early C16 with C17 alterations. Plastered cob walls, rendered at rear. Gable ended thatched roof. 4 stacks - brick stack at each gable end, 2 axial brick stacks close together, left-hand one has stone base. Plan: The house has a 4 room-and-through-passage plan rather than the more typical 3 rooms and even more unusually it has always been the same length. The original disposition of the rooms is more uncertain but there was certainly an open hall, probably at the left end of the house judging from the heaviest degree of smoke- blackening, and the partition were initially only of head height as the smoke- blackening extends in a lessening degree to the other end of the roof. The process of flooring the house may have taken place at different stages which might also account for the varying degree of smoke-blackening in which case the large kitchen at the left-hand end would have been left open to the roof longest. This might account for why it is positioned at the opposite end of the house to the passage rather than in the more customary position immediately adjoining as its lower side. In fact the 'higher' end of the house was definately reserved for service purposes as there is also a dairy inbetween the hall and the kitchen with a short passage behind. Conversely the room at the lower side of the passage is of noticeably higher status and probably functioned as a parlour. Both this room and the hall had axial stacks inserted backing onto the passage. The kitchen has a large gable end cob stack. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 4 window front of small-paned early C20 casements, 2-light on 1st floor, 3-light on ground floor. The lst floor windows have raised 'eyebrows' in the thatch above with decorative bargeboards. Towards right-hand end in early C19 6 panel door at front of passage. Rear elevation is windowless apart from 2 inserted C20 windows at right-hand end on ground and first floor. According to present occupants a wood mullion window exists behind the render on ground floor to left of centre. Interior: is very unaltered. The kitchen has a large open fireplace with chamfered wooden lintel forming depessed 4-centred arch. 2 ovens in left-hand side. This room has a longitudial chamfered beam with run-out stops. The dairy adjoining it has a door with ventilation slats which are moveable. The hall has a central chamfered cross beam with hollow step stops and 2 similar half beams. Large open fireplace with chamfered wooden lintel and elongated pyramid stops. Early C19 wall cupboard in higher end wall with panelled doors. Both the passage and the lower room/parlour have similar heavy cross beams. The latter has a smaller fireplace with a similarly finished wooden lintel. The original roof survives virtually complete from end to end in 7 bays of open trusses. Apart from a section at the centre the original rafters and smoke- blackened thatch are also preserved. The smoke-blackening is heaviest over the left-hand end and then gradually gets lighter; the right-hand end truss is hardly blackened but the thatch and rafters above it are so it may be an insertion. The form of the truss is the same throughout: substantial straight principals, collars halved on with notched joints, some cranked, and trenched purlins. The importance of this house is twofold; it preserves a variety of good features - notably a complete original roof structure, and it also has an unusual plan interesting both as a sizeable medieval house and for the form the C17 remodelling took. The house makes an attractive group with the nearby Church (q.v).

Listing NGR: SS6512504792

External Links

• Wikidata Q17537663

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Recommended Books

• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments