Brown'S Farmhouse

SY 08 NW WOODBURY ALTERTON (west side) 2/ 146 Brown's Farmhouse 11 .11 .52 .. 11* Farmhouse. Circa 1700. Roughcast cob on stone footings; gabled-end thatched roof. Formerly a 3-room, baffle entry plan house, with a barn extension to the left, now converted to accommodation, and divided from the rest of the house by a cob (formerly an end) wall. Principal rooms heated by an axial stack, with a rear newel stair set in shallow stair turret, on the opposite side of the stack to the entrance. Right-hand chamber heated by an end stack that rests on 3 wooden corbels. The left-hand room was heated by a rear external lateral stack (partially dismantled), and was probably the service-room. 2 storeys. Front: originally a 3 (since the 1970s a 4-) window range; 2- and 3-light casement ~ws to 1st floor, five 2-light casement windows to ground floor. Porch (right of centre) with early C18 half dome set in a later (or much repaired) gable, and supported by console brackets; half-glazed studded door with old lock. ~: 6 window range; 2- and 3-light C19 casements. Porch gabled-end, weatherboarded; late-C19 leantos. Interior: most of the ceiling beams are boxed; one in the left-hand room and another in the hall, chamfered and unstopped. Hall fireplace with roughly chamfered lintel. A good set of early-C18 joinery: large fielded panels to the doors, including cupboards, with a variety of hinges, mainly HL and butterfly; bobbin balusters to rear newel stair; some panelled internal shutters; and panelled backs to 1st floor window seats. (One small and unusually shaped cupboard in the hall in traditionally known and still used as a bible cupboard and this may well have been its original purpose). Straight principals to roof visible in upper rooms; roof space not inspected. Baffle entry plans are not common in Devon and Brown's Farmhouse is a good example of this plan type. Reference: the house is briefly discussed in E Mercer, English Vernacular House, (1975) p.151, plate 39.

Listing NGR: SY0149288472