Woodbridge Farmhouse Including Former Stables Adjoining South-West

Woodbridge Farmhouse Including Former Stables Adjoining South-West

This is a farmhouse of Grade II* importance, probably dating from the early or mid-16th century with substantial improvements made during the later 16th and 17th centuries. The stable block adjoining to the south-west was built in the late 18th or early 19th century.

The farmhouse is constructed of colour-washed local stone rubble, possibly with some cob, and probably includes Beerstone ashlar dressings. The chimneys are of stone rubble with plastered shafts, one of which has a soffit-moulded coping in probable Beerstone ashlar. The roof is thatched.

The building originally followed a four-room-and-through-passage plan, built down a gentle slope alongside the lane to the north-west. At the lower (north-east) end is a kitchen with a gable-end stack. Between the kitchen and the passage sits an unheated room, probably formerly a dairy or pantry. A corridor runs along the front between the passage and kitchen; at some point the original passage front doorway was blocked and replaced with a new entrance onto this corridor in front of the dairy pantry. The hall occupies the upper right area above the passage, with an axial stack backing onto the passage and a newel stair turret projecting to the rear at its upper end. At the upper south-west end is another unheated inner room. The stable block stands at the right end, set forward from the main house and connected only at the front corner.

The earliest exposed architectural feature is an oak screen with a shoulder-headed doorway dating to the early 16th century. The house was progressively floored over and fireplaces inserted in stages between the mid-16th and mid-17th centuries. The layout suggests it likely began as some form of open hall house, originally heated by an open hearth fire. One notable element is the fine ceiling in the kitchen; both the kitchen and hall fireplaces contain ovens, suggesting that the lower end kitchen may have been upgraded to a parlour in the early 17th century when the hall was floored over and the hall itself became the kitchen.

The house is now two storeys throughout. The stables are single storey, and a woodshed is attached to the left end of the house.

The exterior presents an irregular two-window front. The left ground floor window is an early 17th-century oak three-light window with ovolo-moulded mullions, with a contemporary two-light window above it having chamfered mullions. The right ground floor windows are later casements set within early 17th-century oak frames from which the chamfered mullions have been removed; the lower one may date to the 18th century and features flat-faced mullions and rectangular panes of leaded glass. Both first floor windows have 17th-century oak sills, chamfered with scroll stops. A third small ground floor window occupies the blocking of the original passage front doorway. The present main front door is immediately to the left, containing a 19th-century plank door, with another similar doorway inserted at the right end to the inner room. The roof is gable-ended to the left and hipped to the right.

The stable block to the right contains two front doors and in its left end a late 18th to early 19th-century oak window with flat-faced mullions containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. Its roof is hipped at both ends. The lean-to woodshed at the left end contains a presumably reset early 17th-century two-light oak window with an ovolo-moulded mullion.

The rear of the main house contains mostly 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars, except for two first floor windows. Over the passage rear doorway is an early 17th-century oak window with chamfered mullions that was originally four lights but now has the middle mullion removed; the outer lights contain rectangular panes of leaded glass. Immediately to the right is another late 18th to early 19th-century flat-faced mullion window, also with leaded panes. The passage rear doorway has been reduced in width to accommodate a 19th-century plank door.

The interior displays considerable quality. The service end kitchen contains a notable late 16th-century four-panel ceiling of richly-moulded intersecting beams. Its large fireplace is now blocked, though its oak lintel is partly exposed and includes a soffit-moulded mantel shelf carved from the solid. Between the kitchen and dairy pantry stands the oldest exposed feature in the house: an early 16th-century oak plank-and-muntin screen containing a shoulder-headed doorway. Stone rubble walls flank the former through passage. There is a late 16th to early 17th-century oak Tudor arch doorway from the passage to the hall, another in the rear wall to the newel stair, and a third at the upper end in an oak plank-and-muntin screen leading to the inner room. The hall fireplace is of Beerstone ashlar with a chamfered oak lintel; its sides are chamfered with urn stops and the lintel appears to be secondary, possibly associated with the flooring of the hall in the late 16th century. The oven is a later insertion. The crossbeam is chamfered with step stops.

On the first floor, little early carpentry is exposed, though the roof from end to end is carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. The roofspace is inaccessible. The stable has a cobbled floor with drainage channels, and its roof is carried on 19th-century A-frame trusses.

Woodbridge is an attractive farmhouse and an unusually well-preserved example of a Devon multi-phase farmhouse, containing a considerable amount of high-quality 16th and 17th-century craftsmanship. The estate was among those left in the will of Thomas Coxe in 1619.