Woodbeer Court Including Front Garden Walls Adjoining To South

Woodbeer Court is a substantial farmhouse, dating from the late 15th to early 16th century, with major improvements carried out in the later 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries, and minor 19th and 20th century modernisations. The building is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, whilst the early 18th-century additions are of local handmade Flemish bond red brick including some burnt headers. The chimneys are of stone rubble and brick, mostly topped with 19th and 20th-century brick, although the hall and kitchen stacks retain local stone rubble chimneyshafts. The roof covering varies between wooden shingles, slate and pantiles; it was formerly thatched.

Plan and Development

The house faces south. The main block has a four-room plan, with two rooms either side of the entrance hall and the main stair rising behind it. The rooms to the right (east) are larger than the others and served as the principal rooms. First comes the former hall with a rear lateral stack, then the principal parlour with a gable-end stack. A kitchen block projects at right angles to the rear, not quite at the end and overlapping the hall a little. It has a two-room plan. The first room here is the largest in the house—the main kitchen—with a newel stair turret projecting on the outer (east) side alongside an axial stack backing onto a second room with a disused gable-end stack. There is a service outshot on the rear end. Back in the main block, to the left (west) of the entrance are two relatively small unheated rooms. A rear block projects at right angles behind the left end. The first room here is heated by an axial stack backing onto the front end room. The space behind the front block, between the rear wings, has been built out and accommodates the main stair to the right and a secondary parlour to the left, the latter heated by a stack backing onto the rear block at that end. The rest of the rear courtyard is enclosed by agricultural outbuildings.

This is a house with a long and complex structural history. The original late 15th to early 16th-century house apparently had a three-room-and-through-passage plan. The entrance hall occupies the site of the passage, although it was then narrower. The room to the left was the lower end service room. It, the passage and the hall were originally open to the roof, divided by low partition screens and heated by an open hearth fire. The inner room end has been so completely rebuilt that there is no evidence apparent for whether it was open or had two storeys.

There were undoubtedly major modernisations through the later 16th and early 17th centuries, but a great deal of the evidence has been removed or hidden by mid-17th and early 18th-century refurbishments. Nevertheless, the hall stack is mid to late 16th century and the hall window suggests that the room was floored in the late 16th to early 17th century. The kitchen block was added in the mid-17th century. It seems likely that the inner room was rebuilt and enlarged as the principal parlour at the same time. The main stair and second parlour might be contemporary or a little later.

In the early 18th century there was a major refurbishment. This involved building the left end room of the main block and the rear block behind, along with the adjoining outbuildings, and extensive modernisations throughout the existing house. At this time the entrance hall was widened at the expense of the hall, the hall was given a new flat ceiling, the stair was renewed (and has been remodelled since), and ceilings were plastered.

The house is two storeys.

Exterior

The house retains an unusually high proportion of early windows. The front has four ground floor windows and three first floor windows. The hall window is late 16th to early 17th century, of painted limestone, with four lights and hollow-chamfered mullions. The parlour window and those on the first floor are early 18th-century oak flat-faced mullion windows. The other two are 20th century.

The entrance hall/former passage front doorway is left of centre and contains a probably original oak doorframe with a four-centred arch, double-chamfered surround and an ancient plank door with coverstrips and plain strap hinges. The gabled porch is 19th century. The roof is hipped to the left and gable-ended to the right.

The back of the main block (onto the rear courtyard) has an irregular three-window front including a mid to late 17th-century oak three-light window with ogee-moulded mullions at first floor centre, and an early 18th-century oak flat-faced mullion window to each floor at the right end. The rear doorway has a mid to late 17th-century doorframe with moulded surround.

The courtyard side of the kitchen block has a three-window front and all but one are original (that is to say early to mid-17th century) oak-framed windows. They all have ovolo-moulded mullions and most have transoms; the exception is the small two-light window central at first floor level, which is also the only window in the whole house to retain diamond panes of leaded glass, some of them green-tinged and probably original. The kitchen block doorframe is also original, of oak with a moulded surround and urn stops. On the outer side of the kitchen block the newel stair has an old (if not original) window and the main kitchen window has been replaced leaving the original moulded oak frame. The other windows and doorways are mostly 19th century, although a couple could be early 18th century.

Interior

The interior is very good, showing mostly the results of the major 17th and early 18th-century refurbishments as superficially modernised in the 19th century.

In the entrance hall the left (service) side follows the line of the original passage partition and the doorway there contains a 17th-century plank door with a panelled front made up of moulded coverstrips. The first service end room has a roughly finished crossbeam of indeterminate date (probably 18th century). The second parlour behind has no carpentry detail and the fireplace is blocked, but the ceiling has an early 18th-century moulded plaster cornice. The rear block room has a chamfered and scroll-stopped crossbeam but the fireplace here is also blocked.

The main staircase behind the entrance hall is late 17th century, although it has been much rebuilt. The hall has a late 16th-century fireplace built of sandstone with a chamfered surround. The ceiling structure is early 18th century, comprising a square-section crossbeam with upended plank joists. The upper end crosswall is close-studded and probably 17th century. The parlour has an early ornamental plaster ceiling featuring a double rib oval and including small moulded plaster floral sprigs around the edges. The fireplace here is blocked by a 19th-century grate.

The carpentry detail of the kitchen wing is wholly early to mid-17th century. The crossbeams have deep chamfers with scroll stops. Both fireplaces are blocked but their large size is evident; the one in the main kitchen has a cambered or low Tudor arch oak lintel. Also here the courtyard window has a broad king mullion. It is carved with a decorative pilaster below a carved scroll-shaped bracket which supports the window lintel. The doorway from kitchen to parlour is very fine. Its oak frame is richly moulded with large urn stops. The doorway to the newel stair is a plain crank-headed arch.

There is a great deal of 17th or early 18th-century joinery detail throughout the house. The chamber over the first service end room has a small late 16th-century fireplace of limestone ashlar with a probably replacement oak lintel; its jambs are chamfered with pyramid stops.

Roof

The roof includes three main phases. The original late 15th to early 16th-century roof structure survives over the first service end room, the entrance hall and adjoining part of the hall. It is of a very unusual form for domestic houses in Devon, although similar roofs do occur in contemporary churches. It is a common rafter truss roof of relatively slender scantling comprising a series of identical A-frame trusses with plain arch braces. The only longitudinal member above wall plate level was a collar purlin which was pegged into the soffits of alternate collars. In short this is an open wagon roof. There are no original partitions and the roof structure is smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire.

The roof over the eastern end of the main block (the upper end of the hall and parlour) is inaccessible. Nevertheless plastered over jointed cruck trusses can be seen, probably contemporary with the similar trusses over the kitchen. The western end and rear block roof is carried on early 18th-century A-frame trusses with pegged and spiked lap-jointed collars. The rear block roof continues over the adjoining outbuildings. All these trusses have carpenters' assembly marks.

Setting

From each end of the front, early 18th-century tall brick walls project forward enclosing the sides of the front garden. Across the front are mid to late 19th-century iron spear-headed railings.

Historical Context

Woodbeer Court, along with the outbuildings, forms a very well-preserved group: a substantial and prosperous late medieval farmhouse, or small mansion, which was steadily enlarged and modernised to a high standard through the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries. It has had no major modernisations since. Great care should be undertaken during any future modernisation lest early carpentry detail be exposed. Moreover, early 18th-century plaster covers many of the walls and ceilings.

Woodbeer was Widebera in Domesday. It is mentioned in the Testa de Nevil of 1241 and there are other medieval references to the place. The farmer has a good map of the property dated 1788. The architects Redfern, Gilpin, and Riley of Exeter have measured plans and external elevations (1986). Alcock and Hulland published drawings of the original doorway and roof in Devonshire Farm Houses, Part IV, Transactions of the Devon Association, volume 104 (1972), pages 53–55.