Yalberton Farmhouse

Yalberton Farmhouse is a divided farmhouse dating from around 1550 to 1600, with its roof raised around 1700 and further extended and re-windowed around 1800. The building is constructed of cob on stone rubble footings, with surfaces partly roughcast and partly stuccoed and blocked out. The roof is mostly thatched with some slate at the left (east) end, and the stacks have rendered and brick shafts.

Plan and Development

The farmhouse has a single-depth main block facing north, with a left (east) end featuring a rear left wing. The east end and wing are under an M-plan slate roof. Originally, the building followed a two- or three-room and cross-passage plan, with the passage positioned to the right of centre and the entrance now on the south side. The lower end room and hall were heated by lateral stacks on the north side, with a stair projection on the south wall of the hall.

Around 1700, the roof was raised, leaving the remains of one cruck truss over the hall, now only visible in a first-floor room to the front. There may have been an inner room, but evidence for this has been obscured by a one-room plan extension or thorough rebuilding of the main block at the left (east) end with a slate roof and a new entrance on the north side into a cross passage. The inner room and rear wing are now in separate occupation and were not inspected.

Exterior

The two-storey building has a thatched roof hipped at the ends over the centre and right end, with a slate gabled roof to the left. The front wall angles out to the left of the front door, indicating a secondary phase. The front elevation is stuccoed and blocked out under the slate roof of the eastern extension. The cob front elevation of the main block has been re-clad in rough stone and stuccoed, with a subsidiary slate extension to the roof.

The north side presents an asymmetrical six-window front with two massive lateral shouldered stacks with set-offs. The right-hand stack has a truncated shaft at eaves level with a slate extension roof over. An early 19th-century entrance to the left of centre features a six-panel door with a deep overlight and cornice on carved consoles. At the right end, an archway gives access to a farm building with a domestic room above.

Ground-floor windows include a 19th-century French window with margin panes to the left, a 12-pane horned sash to the right of the door, and a small window with an internal shutter to the right of the hall stack (now blocked by a pierced zinc screen). A segmental-headed archway stands to the right. At first-floor level are five 12-pane sashes, three without horns and retaining old glass, plus a four-pane fixed window above the archway at the right end.

The rear elevation features steps up to a plank door leading to the old cross passage, with a shallow stair projection alongside to the right containing a small four-pane stair window. The eaves thatch is eyebrowed over two first-floor 19th- or early 20th-century timber casement windows with glazing bars, one similar ground-floor window, and one 20th-century iron-framed casement to the ground floor right.

Interior

Only the main block was inspected. From the late 16th-century phase, a plank and muntin screen with a chamfered stopped headbeam survives to the left of the old cross passage, with traces of polychrome paint under a wash. The passage is terminated by a 19th-century plank screen. The room space beyond retains its flagstone floor and is blocked at the front (north) side except for the small window with internal shutter sealed by the external zinc screen.

The hall retains one stop-chamfered cross beam, while the lower end room to the west has exposed joists. The hall fireplace is currently blocked but may preserve an early lintel and jambs, flanked by a blocked wide-splayed window to its left and a wide-splay window to its right with some panelling. The lower end room fireplace is also blocked. The exposed joists in the lower end room were replaced after a fire by oak replacements in 1998.

The truncated cruck truss, cut off above the mortised collar across the position of a through purlin, is visible in the roofspace. The cruck is visible in one first-floor room on the north (front) side, west of the hall stack and partitioned from it. The existing thatched roof is probably late 17th century (possibly 18th century) and comprises eleven pegged A-frames with butt collars, one with a tie beam into which uprights for a partition below are pegged. The cruck sits centrally within a bay with no A-frame attached to it. The ceiling above the hall is lower than that to the west. Each slope supports eight to nine purlins or thatching battens notched into the frames. Elsewhere, the front elevation has been stepped out, the lower two purlins on each frame have been removed, and a subsidiary rafter, or sprocket, has been attached to the top surface of the frame beneath the thatch.

The easternmost bay of the roofspace is roofed in slate and accommodates a second A-frame with rafters above principal purlins. An internal gable-chimney stack divides the main block internally from the extension. Two A-frame frames to the eastern end gable lie beyond but were not accessible.

Surviving historic joinery includes an around 1700 door with horizontal panels and original hinges to one bedroom (a similar door to the lower end room was destroyed in a fire). A two-panel door survives at the bottom of the stair. An 18th-century cupboard with fielded panels and cornice (doors missing, but three drawers below) is located in one first-floor room. Most plaster has been renewed and replaced after the fire, though extensive survival of old plaster remains elsewhere. The present owner remembers a partial pitched stone floor in the hall around 1947.

This is an attractive vernacular South Hams building, very unaltered internally and externally, which was repaired and renewed following a fire in 1998.