Outer Marsh Farmhouse

The farmhouse, situated in Clyst Hydon, dates from the early to mid-16th century, with significant alterations in the later 16th and early 17th centuries. It was refurbished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and modernised around 1970. The structure is plaster over cob on stone rubble footings and features brick and stone rubble stacks with 19th and 20th-century brick tops, covered by a thatched roof, currently protected by tarpaulins.

The farmhouse has a U-shaped plan, facing east. The main block initially had a three-room-and-through-passage plan. A small unheated inner room, likely a dairy or buttery, is at the north end, followed by the hall, which has a rear lateral stack. To the south is a lower end parlour, which projects to the rear and forms the front room of a crosswing with an axial stack backing onto a service room. A kitchen block projects at right angles to the rear of the right end, overlapping behind the hall, with its stack backing onto the hall stack. The front block represents the original core of the house, originally open to the roof with low partitions and an open hearth fire. Development is difficult to ascertain due to concealed structural evidence. The lower end was rebuilt as the parlour crosswing in the mid-17th century. The hall was floored around the same time, and the kitchen wing, possibly also 17th century, has a 19th-century fireplace. The hall fireplace was rebuilt concurrently. The house is two storeys high.

Externally, the windows are largely 20th-century with glazing bars. The front is buttressed and has an irregular three-window front. The doorway to the passage is to the left of centre, contained within a late 19th- to early 20th-century plank door and porch. The roof is half-hipped to the right and hipped to the left.

The interior largely reflects 19th and 20th-century modernisation, with limited original carpentry visible in the dairy/buttery, kitchen, or service room. The hall fireplace is rebuilt in brick. However, a 17th-century axial crossbeam is present. The parlour crossbeam is ogee-moulded with bar scroll stops, mirrored in the fireplace lintel, although the fireplace itself is lined with 20th-century brick. The roofs of the main block and parlour crosswing are supported by side-pegged jointed cruck trusses which are not contemporary. The roof of the main block, over the hall and inner room, is smoke-blackened from the original open hearth. The parlour crosswing roof was built in the 17th century.