Kirkham House

Kirkham House is a medieval house of the 15th century with alterations dating from 1520–1560, now in guardianship. The building was substantially repaired in the 1950s by the Ministry of Works.

The house is constructed from local red breccia with a slate roof. The stone stacks have stone shafts and rhomboidal caps. The plan is single-depth with three rooms and a through-passage positioned to the left of centre. The hall lies to the right and remains open to the roof, with a 16th-century first-floor room jetted into it above a spere truss. An unheated service room or shop, with a separate entrance onto the street, occupies the far right end. A high-quality parlour is situated to the left. The first floor contains a superior room above the parlour, a small unheated 16th-century chamber above the part-floored hall, and a second heated chamber at the right end with a garderobe. A rear outshut has a 16th-century gallery above it, which provides access to a second heated first-floor chamber formerly reached by a separate stair. The kitchen consists of ruinous walls to the rear, separately listed. The superior interior detail throughout suggests a high-status occupant.

The exterior is two storeys with an asymmetrical front elevation displaying four windows on the ground floor and three on the first. A gabled slate roof with slightly sprocketed eaves crowns the building. The front door, positioned left of centre, has a moulded timber frame with an ogee-arched head and a 20th-century plank-and-stud door. Most of the Tudor-style mullioned windows, some retaining moulded lintels, date from the Ministry of Works renovation; only the left-hand first-floor window, an 18th-century casement with flat-faced mullion, is original. A blocked doorway exists to the right of centre. The rear elevation features a timber-framed gallery that was reconstructed by the Ministry of Works.

The passage retains a cobbled floor and a wide segmental stone arch to the rear doorway, chamfered on one side with a pyramid stop. Plank-and-muntin screens flank both sides of the passage. The hall has an unusually wide shoulder-headed doorway and a fireplace heated from a rear lateral stack with an unusual brattished stone mantelshelf. The 16th-century jetted room above the hall is supported on a moulded beam. The parlour contains a 15th-century fireplace and 16th-century moulded beams. An alcove adjacent to the fireplace may mark the position of the original 15th-century stair. A 20th-century stair now provides access through an ogee-arched doorway in the rear wall. A shoulder-headed doorway connects the hall to an unheated room with rough carpentry. Both first-floor end chambers have hooded fireplaces. The gallery is a rare survival of jointed cruck construction.

The interior originally contained two domestic piscinas—one in the hall and one in the parlour—with evidence that they were fed from lead tanks in the outshut. These were assumed to be of ecclesiastical origin in 1910 and were removed: one was transferred to the vestry of the parish church of St John the Baptist, which retains it with a carved boss surrounding the water pipe, and the other to the parish church of Goodrington.

The roof comprises two types of trusses. Some are A-frame trusses with principals featuring short curved feet. Others, unusual for Devon, incorporate ashlar pieces and sole plates.

This is a fine and unusual example of a small-scale but high-quality medieval house with exceptionally grand provision for eating and washing. There is no documentary evidence to confirm the traditional supposition that it was a priest's house. The Ministry of Works repairs represent exemplary conservation practice of their era. Fine architects' drawings from the 1950s are retained by English Heritage, Properties in Care.