Tiphayes Farmhouse Including Barn Adjoining West

Tiphayes Farmhouse including Barn Adjoining West

This is a farmhouse of early to mid-16th century date with major later 16th and 17th century improvements. It was modernised around 1980 and the roof was completely rebuilt following a fire in 1985. The building is constructed of local stone and flint rubble with some 19th century brick dressings, stone rubble chimney stacks, and a thatch roof (the barn roof is slate, formerly thatch).

The house follows a 3-room-and-through-passage plan facing south, built down the hillslope. At the uphill west end is an unheated inner room, originally a dairy or buttery but now used as a library. Next to it is the hall with an axial stack and a newel stair turret projecting to the rear. At the downhill east end is a service kitchen with a gable-end stack, with a turret projecting in front of the kitchen fireplace (possibly originally for a stair). The kitchen is now a dining room, with the present kitchen occupying a 19th century outshot to the rear. The house is 2 storeys.

The house originally appears to have been an open hall house heated by an open hearth fire. The hall, inner room, and full-height crosswall between them are thought to have been built in the early 17th century, along with the hall stair and flooring-over. The service kitchen may also be early 17th century or slightly later. Since the roof was destroyed in 1985, the original layout cannot be fully determined.

The exterior has irregular fenestration with 4 ground floor windows and 3 first floor windows, all fitted with low brick segmental arches and now containing 20th century oak-framed casements with glazing bars. The passage doorway to the right of centre contains an early 17th century oak doorframe with cambered head and chamfered surround, and is fronted by an early 20th century gabled porch. The right end wall has an oak-framed window with chamfered mullions (a 20th century replacement of a 17th century window). In the rear wall, the hall and inner room retain original 17th century oak windows with chamfered mullions. The roof is half-hipped to the left and gable-ended to the right.

Interior features include an oak plank-and-muntin screen along the lower side of the passage with chamfered muntins and straight-cut stops, possibly 16th century and the oldest exposed feature in the house. The hall fireplace retains a chamfered oak lintel and a crossbeam chamfered with step stops. The muntins on the oak plank-and-muntin screen at the upper end of the hall are given the same finish, with stops high enough to accommodate a bench below. The small inner room has no beam. The service kitchen has a plain chamfered crossbeam and a large stone rubble fireplace with a chamfered oak lintel containing 3 bread ovens of various dates. The lintel continues over what is now the barn entrance, originally a walk-in curing chamber, the upper part of which (including a blocked return flue at first floor level) is preserved. At the top of the newel stair is a small lobby screened from the adjacent chambers by short oak plank-and-muntin screens containing crank-headed doorways. The roof was completely replaced in 1985 with new trusses made in the shape of jointed crucks.

The barn adjoining the right end of the house has been converted to domestic use. It has 3 front doorways, the centre one formerly part of opposing doorways onto a threshing floor. The roof includes trusses of various dates: the two oldest are jointed cruck trusses held by slip tenons, stylistically early and thought to be 16th century, although they are clean and designed to carry a diagonally set ridge. Because the building was extensively rebuilt in the 19th century, it cannot be established whether these trusses were originally built or reset here. The truss nearest the main house is early to mid-17th century, an A-frame with dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collar. The remaining trusses are 19th century.