Margells

Margells is a house, formerly the parlour wing of a larger dwelling, located on the north side of Branscombe Street. Built in the late 16th century, it was carefully restored around 1975 by the Landmark Trust. The building is constructed of local stone rubble with Beerstone ashlar dressings, and features a Beerstone ashlar stack and chimneyshaft that has been extended with twentieth-century brick. The roof is thatched and pitched to gable ends.

The house follows a two-room plan with a central through passage, built on a south-west to north-east axis with its gable end facing the lane. The former principal parlour at the front has a projecting lateral stack with a projecting stair turret alongside on the outer south-east end. The rear room has a projecting gable-end stack. The quality of the rooms indicates this is only the parlour wing of what was once a larger house; the rest is thought to have been converted to form Shute Cottage, Fern Cottage and Wayside Cottage, which adjoin at right angles to the north-west of the rear room. A small lobby belonging to Margells intrudes into this cottage block. The building rises two storeys.

The exterior features two storeys with modern twentieth-century casement windows with glazing bars throughout, except for an original Beerstone two-light window at first floor level to the rear, which has an ovolo-moulded mullion and hoodmould. The front end contains a single window on each floor. On the inner north-west side there is a single window above the passage doorway, which contains a nineteenth-century plank door. To the right of this window, under the eaves, a short cruck post is exposed, standing on an oak plate. On the outer south-east side the parlour stack displays weathered offsets, and the stair has a tiny window. To its right the passage doorway contains a nineteenth-century door, and the window to its right has an original Beerstone hoodmould.

The interior carpentry is entirely original and has been expertly restored to exemplary standards. The passage is lined on both sides with oak plank-and-muntin screens, with muntins chamfered and featuring diagonal cut stops. Each screen contains a Tudor arch doorway, though the parlour doorway head has been restored. The screen headbeams are independent and do not align with the first floor partitions.

The rear ground floor room has a four-panel ceiling of moulded intersecting beams. The front room displays a higher quality sixteen-panel intersecting beam ceiling, also of moulded intersecting beams, where the panels are unplastered and sets of three plain joists are set at right angles to those in adjoining panels. Both ground floor fireplaces are modestly finished in stone rubble with plain chamfered oak lintels. The newel staircase has been rebuilt.

The first floor contains three unheated bedchambers of approximately equal size, divided by two closed trusses filled with small-panelled framing nogged with plaster. The rear chamber contains a Tudor arch doorway, while the front chamber contains a round-headed doorway, possibly converted from a Tudor arch. A corridor between these doorways from the head of the stairs is formed by a low partition of similar small panel framing and contains another Tudor arch. All three rooms are open to the roof, which is carried on clean side-pegged jointed crucks. The front chamber contains a fragment of rich mural painting, probably original, featuring red and black as dominant colours with foliage and a frieze, though it also includes a human head. The standard of craftsmanship throughout the renovation has produced one of the finest late sixteenth-century interiors in Devon. The house forms part of an exceptionally good group of mostly thatched traditional buildings making up the attractive hamlet of Street.