Pound Farmhouse Including Front Garden Walls

Pound Farmhouse including Front Garden Walls

Farmhouse, dated circa 1670–90, with mid-19th century modernisations and refurbishment circa 1970. This is a very interesting farmhouse and an early example of a 'modern' plan, representing one of the earliest brick farmhouses in Devon.

The front and end walls are constructed in English bond brick with Beerstone ashlar quoins. The rear is built of local stone and flint rubble with a section of brickwork. The front is now plastered. Stone rubble chimney stacks are topped with 19th and 20th century brick chimneyshafts. The roof is slate, replacing original thatch.

The house is built down the hillslope and faces south-east. It now comprises a three-room plan centred on a large central entrance hall containing the staircase, with rooms at each end heated by gable-end stacks. The north-western end room is now the kitchen and the south-eastern end room is now the sitting room or parlour, although originally they were arranged the other way round. The large central entrance hall was created by removing partitions. Originally there was a corridor along the front wall connecting the end rooms. The staircase, though a replacement, still occupies the position of the original, rising alongside the corridor behind the front doorway. Behind the corridor and staircase were two service rooms, probably for pantry, buttery, dairy and similar purposes. A similar plan is preserved intact on the first floor.

The house is two storeys with an attic over the right (original kitchen) end. There is a secondary lean-to outshot to the rear of the left end.

The front elevation is regular but not symmetrical, with four windows. Most are old oak flat-faced mullion windows containing rectangular panes of leaded glass, some probably original, though some are 20th century casements with glazing. The front doorway is right of centre and contains a 20th century plank door behind a contemporary gabled porch. The main roof is gable-ended.

Interior: Apart from alterations associated with creating the large entrance hall, the house is well-preserved, with some ceiling carpentry probably original in the entrance hall itself. In the original parlour, now the kitchen, there is an axial beam of large scantling that is chamfered with lambstongue stops. The stone fireplace here is plastered with a plain oak lintel and contains an inserted 19th century oven. The original kitchen, now the sitting room, is larger and has two chamfered crossbeams with lambstongue stops. It contains a large Beerstone ashlar fireplace with chamfered oak lintel and a large side oven. A cupboard to the right once connected to the adjoining outhouse but was probably originally a walk-in curing chamber.

The first floor is remarkably well-preserved. All doorways here have original oak frames with chamfered surrounds and scroll-nick stops, and some contain probably original plank doors. The large chamber over the original kitchen has chamfered crossbeams with scroll stops supporting the attic floor, which is gained by a winder stair rising alongside the stack at that end. A secondary corridor has been created through this chamber to the attic stair, with the partition made up of reused sections of late 17th century small field panelling.

The roof is carried on A-frame trusses with pegged dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collars.

The front garden is enclosed by a probably 19th century stone rubble wall.