Latchley Farmhouse

Latchley Farmhouse, Calstock

A farmhouse, now residential house, constructed in the early to mid 17th century with later 17th-century additions, enlarged around the early 18th century, and modified throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Built of rendered stone rubble.

The original building was arranged on a large two-room plan, with a hall and kitchen on the left and a parlour on the right, each heated independently by a gable end stack. Both gable end stacks have rubble shafts; the right stack is clustered and weathered, the left weathered. There was no passage originally, with the entrance leading directly into the hall and kitchen. The main roof is slate with ridge tiles, including one surviving hand-made crested ridge tile. Gable ends are prominent.

During the late 17th century, a stair tower was added to the rear of the hall, and a single-storey dairy was added to the rear of the parlour, accessed from a doorway at the rear right of the hall. In the early 18th century, an unheated single-room addition with a loft was built to the front of the hall, entered from the right side. Late in the 18th century, the doorway was enclosed within a lateral passage running along the front of the house, and a new two-room addition was constructed to the front. This addition was each room heated from back-to-back fireplaces served by an axial stack with a rendered shaft, topped by a hipped scantle slate roof. Evidence of the early building remains visible in a joint at the left side of the front range and in surviving footings. The two rooms in this addition may have functioned as paired one-room houses, with access from the front to the left room and from the rear to the right room.

The 19th century saw the hall and kitchen partitioned to create a through passage, and an apple loft was added above the dairy at the rear right. In the 20th century, the original front door was enclosed in a porch at the right side.

The main rear range is two storeys, with the parlour end visible to the right. The parlour has a 20th-century three-light casement at ground floor and two 20th-century two-light casements in raking dormers above. The right gable end has a 20th-century window at first floor. The dairy to the right features a 20th-century window with a slate cill at ground floor and a small loading door above leading to the apple loft. The left gable end displays an external stack with a curved oven visible at the base inside the lateral corridor. The rear of the main range has a 20th-century two-light casement to the apple loft and a small single-storey 20th-century addition. A door provides access to the side of the dairy. The stair tower, positioned to the right, has a pitched roof forming a catslide with the main range roof and a nine-pane light to the rear. The upper end to the right has 20th-century metal-framed windows at ground and first floors.

The 18th-century front range is two storeys with a symmetrical four-window front, all featuring 20th-century metal-framed casements. At ground floor is a half-glazed 20th-century door to the left with a window to the right; the right end has two windows. The right side is blind. A 20th-century lean-to encloses the original front door to the right. To the left is a two-storey lean-to to the rear of the 18th-century range, with four-pane lights at ground and first floor. The wall is stopped, with footings remaining from the earlier building.

The interior of the rear range features front and rear doors, both with granite cills and remaining pintles from earlier doors. Both doors have rounded wooden arches inserted within the frames. The parlour to the right contains roughly hewn beams, which appear sooted and are possibly re-used, with a fireplace rebuilt in the 20th century. A stud partition wall separates the parlour from the main room. The hall and kitchen to the left has a 19th-century wooden partition wall creating an angled passage, as the rear door does not align directly opposite the front door. The hall has replaced beams and a blocked fireplace at the gable end. The rear stair tower contains a 19th-century wooden newel stair. The dairy at the rear right has been partitioned and contains keeping holes. On the first floor, the apple loft has an 18th-century plank door with strap hinges. The room over the parlour has an early 18th-century two-panelled door with left-hand hinges. Boxed feet of principal rafters are visible at first floor; the roof space is not accessible. In the front range, fireplaces contain cloam ovens, with the right room retaining a wooden mantel. The walls in the front range are constructed with lime mortar.