Vicarsmead Including Boundary Walls Adjoining To East And West

Vicarsmead, East Budleigh

This Grade II* listed house stands on Hayes Lane in East Budleigh and represents an exceptionally picturesque example of continuous rural building development spanning from the early 16th century through to the 20th century.

Early History and Building Phases

The house originated as a vicarage in the early 16th century, with significant improvements added in the later 16th and 17th centuries. It was modernised and reduced in size around 1690, following a documented appeal to the bishop that year describing the building in a ruinous state. This appeal was granted and restoration carried out. The house remained a vicarage until 1852. A further phase of alteration occurred in the early 19th century when the southern end was altered and a wing built at right angles to provide a parish room. This wing was constructed by the Reverend Ambrose Stapleton, an incumbent known to have organised smuggling in the area; a hidden space in the thickness of the first floor wall may have been built to hide contraband. The house was modernised again around 1930.

Structure and Construction

The building is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks topped with plastered brick (the hall stack apparently rebuilt around 1930). It is covered with a thatch roof. The main block is gable-ended; the early 19th-century wing has a half-hipped roof. The house originally faced west but now faces east, and follows a much-altered 3-room-and-through-passage plan, with the service end room at the right (northern) end. The service end room has an end stack, whilst the hall has a rear lateral stack. Nineteenth and 20th-century rear outshots have been added, with the rear end of the passage containing a 2-storey porch (originally the front), though its doorway is now blocked, converting the lower part to a small room. The building is 2 storeys.

Exterior Features

The main block presents an irregular 4-window front. These are flat-faced mullion windows with casements; the oldest date from around 1690 and are of oak, containing rectangular panes of leaded glass, some of considerable age. The hall window to the left of the passage doorway includes signatures of 18th and 19th-century vicars scratched onto the glass, and the casement retains a shaped wrought iron catch. The passage doorway has an early 19th-century 6-panel door with panelled reveals, and is protected by a 20th-century porch with semi-conical thatch roof resting on rustic timber posts.

The inner side of the left-hand south wing contains two ground floor 2-light casements (one on each side of a blocked doorway) and another on the end, positioned below an early 19th-century Venetian window with glazing bars. The rear outshots feature 20th-century casements with glazing bars, with thatch continued down from the main roof on the left side.

Interior and Architectural Quality

The interior demonstrates exceptional quality and shows the work of all major building phases. The oldest surviving feature is the remains of a face-pegged jointed cruck roof truss over the service end room, though the upper part has been removed and any evidence of smoke-blackening from an open hearth fire is lost. The main roof over the passage and hall dates from the early or mid 16th century. It spans 3 bays with side-pegged jointed cruck trusses featuring moulded archbraces. On the rear side one set of double windbraces survive, and the purlin below retains ancient painted decoration—mid or late 16th-century scrolls and part of a Latin quotation on a black ground. This paintwork suggests the hall had a fireplace by this time, though the stack has been rebuilt and now contains a 20th-century grate.

A mid 16th-century oak window frame has been reset at the upper end of the hall, featuring 2 lights with crank-headed lights. The service end room contains probably 17th-century soffit-chamfered crossbeams. The sandstone fireplace here shows knife-sharpening depressions and contains an oven relined with 19th-century brick. The lintel is a replacement but uses a 17th-century moulded beam. The stairs and much joinery detail date from the 19th century, whilst the carpentry detail in the parish room wing is 19th and 20th-century work.

Boundary Walls and Setting

From the gable end of the service room onto Hayes Lane, high walls of plastered cob on stone rubble footings extend both east and west as boundary walls. The western wall has tile coping, whilst the eastern wall (which contains 20th-century double gates) has thatch coping.

Historical Context

The house was formerly known as Brooklands and the Old Vicarage. The earliest documentary reference dates from 1513. A terrier of 1679-80 describes five ground floor rooms: hall, parlour, kitchen, and two butteries or milk houses. The house represents an important record of rural domestic building and improvement across four centuries, embodying successive responses to changing domestic needs and economic circumstances in an agricultural community.