Widworthy Barton

House, Former Manor House

Widworthy Barton is a former manor house with parts dating from the early 16th century, though most of the building was rebuilt in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Various 20th-century modernisations of differing quality have been carried out. The house is built of local stone and front rubble with Beerstone dressings and detailing. The stacks are of stone rubble topped with 19th- and 20th-century brick. The roof is slate, though it was probably originally thatched.

Plan and Development

The house follows a courtyard plan. The main front block faces north-east and has a two-room plan with a through-passage between the rooms and a two-storey front porch. The larger room to the right (north-west) is the Great Hall with a rear lateral stack. The left room (the dining room) was probably originally some kind of service parlour; its large projecting gable-end stack has been partly rebuilt in the 20th century.

The left (south-east) wing overlaps the end of the main block. This originally contained service rooms and now houses the present kitchen. It has a stack backing onto the dining room/service parlour of the main block. The rear (south-west) wing is the original kitchen wing with a large gable-end stack at the south-east end.

The right (north-west) wing also overlaps the end of the front block by a short distance. This appears to have been a parlour wing, although there are no original fireplaces here. At the upper end of the hall is an alcove between the hall and parlour wing with a first-floor minstrels' gallery. Behind the presumed parlour, the first room of the wing is a through-passage, and the unheated end room of the wing was probably a buttery or dairy adjoining the original kitchen. The first floor is one long room, presumably the principal chamber.

There is some evidence that there was a newel stair turret in the angle of the hall and parlour, but this has been replaced by a 20th-century stair block across the back of the passage and hall.

Structural History

The oldest part of the house appears to be the rear kitchen range. Here part of an early 16th-century roof structure remains, which is smoke-blackened, indicating that this block was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. It might have been a detached kitchen or even the original open hall house before the front block was built. In the mid or late 16th century (either when the main block was built or refurbished), it was converted to a kitchen with its new kitchen stack and was floored over. There is no internal stair to the first floor here, and up until circa 1960 there was an external stair on the back.

The main block appears to be a mid-16th-century build. It appears to have had a three-room-and-through-passage plan. The roof structure shows that there was once an inner room at the right (north-west) end with a full-height crosswall between the hall and inner room. The roof is clean and therefore the hall fireplace is probably original. The hall, passage, and service end were open to the roof.

In the late 16th century the parlour block was built and the main block converted to its present layout. The porch was added at this time and the fenestration seems to be contemporary. The attic over the hall and the gallery is also late 16th century. It is not clear whether the service end room was floored over at this time; this might have happened in the early 17th century. The floor goes across the tall front window. The south-east wing also could be as late as the early 17th century.

Much of the early structural history and development of the house has been confused by 20th-century modernisations, which have involved moving some features around the house and introducing others.

The hall is full height with attics over; the rest of the house is two storeys.

Exterior

The main front presents a regular but not symmetrical 1:1:2-window front of restored late 16th-century windows. The main windows are tall full-height four-light Beerstone windows with ovolo-moulded mullions and a central transom. There is a three-light version over the porch and a small two-light window in the right side of the porch. There is a secondary first-floor window left of the porch. A continuous hoodmould is carried round the porch and the right end.

The outer arch of the porch is a Beerstone Tudor arch with moulded surround, and directly above it is a panel containing a carved armorial bearing. The passage front doorway is another Tudor arch with moulded surround (and yet another to the rear doorway) which contains its original studded plank door with moulded coverstrips making a panelled front, complete with original ferramenta.

On the main front are the remains of a Beerstone ashlar chamfered plinth. There are Beerstone ashlar quoins to the porch and main block. The gable ends of the main block and porch have shaped kneelers and coping, and the porch and right end of the main block have apex finials.

The north-west end has a 1:3-window front in the same style as the front block, although not all the windows still contain rectangular panes of leaded glass. The end hall window is the largest in the building: six lights with a central king mullion (with an internal moulded shaft inside) and transom. The parlour block passage front doorway is another Tudor arch with moulded surround. It and the window to the left have hoodmoulds, and the continuous hoodmould of the front block was carried across the front of this block as a dripcourse (although it is now mostly cut back flush with the wall face).

In the angle of the front and parlour blocks is an ornate lead rainwater head inscribed with the initials R and A S with the date 1724.

The south-west facing gable-end of the parlour block contains a first-floor four-light Beerstone mullion-and-transom window and a ground-floor late 16th-century oak four-light window with ovolo-moulded mullions. The rest of this side (the original kitchen) contains only one late 16th-century window; the rest are 20th-century casements, and one towards the left end is blocking a former doorway.

The south-east side also contains mostly 20th-century casements. The inside of the courtyard contains some original windows including a Beerstone one restored with Hamstone to the rear of the main block and some oak windows with ovolo-moulded mullions. The courtyard side of the original kitchen shows a number of blockings.

Interior

The upper (hall) side of the passage is an oak-panelled screen. It is late 16th century in style but was built in the 20th century incorporating one bay of original panelling. On the passage side the small panels are painted to appear like fielded panelling. The close-studded crosswall above the screen has a sill beam over the screen as if it were built on top of an existing screen. The roof shows that the upper crosswall is secondary (late 16th century).

The hall fireplace is Beerstone with a Tudor arch head. The flat ceiling was created in the late 16th century, probably for ornamental plasterwork. The gallery alcove preserves a remnant of late 16th-century ornamental plasterwork but is otherwise mostly 20th century, although at ground-floor level there is an ovolo-moulded jamb of a Beerstone doorway. The gallery front is 20th century, made to look like an old arcade by using 19th-century carved poppyheads from church pews. The plasterwork, however, is good and includes two fine brackets moulded as female angels. In fact these angels are dressed as fashionable young ladies of the period 1600–1605, and most interestingly their hairstyles are Italian.

The lower (service parlour) side of the passage is an oak large-framed screen, and the first-floor crosswall jetties into the parlour; the upper part is another large-framed crosswall closing an arch-braced truss. The service parlour/dining room has a three-bay ceiling carried on chamfered and step-stopped crossbeams, and the fireplace here is a 20th-century rebuild.

The chamber above is lined with small-field oak panelling, some of it late 16th to early 17th century and some of it 20th century. Some of the oak panels of the frieze have a simple geometric panel of inlaid marquetry including a fragment of an inlaid Latin inscription recording the death of one John Chichester (surely not the one who died in 1485 as a 20th-century plaque in the room suggests). This panelling was reset here in the 20th century; it came from the parlour wing. Also it is unlikely that the room over the porch was ever a chapel.

The mid-16th-century roof over the main block is substantially intact. It is seven bays; originally the north-west two bays were divided off by a closed truss. The rest were side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with chamfered arch braces.

Little early detail remains in the parlour wing. The fireplaces are 20th century and no carpentry shows in the parlour. In the long chamber above there is a fine ornamental plasterwork overmantel; it is a strapwork cartouche enriched with flowers and with rustic squirrels on each side sitting on top of scrolls. In the centre is an armorial bearing, Bluett impaling Rowe, under a date of 1591. This was moved here from a farmhouse on the Shute estate, about five miles from Widworthy. The roof is mostly 19th century except for the single truss nearest the main block, which is late 16th century; it is an A-frame truss with slots for missing arch braces.

The south-west service wing is late 16th to early 17th century. The ground-floor room (present kitchen and 20th-century stair) has chamfered and step-stopped crossbeams and a Beerstone fireplace with chamfered oak lintel (the fireplace appears to have been partly rebuilt in the 20th century). The chamber above has a small Beerstone fireplace with Tudor arch head, the only early first-floor fireplace. The oak plank-and-muntin screen partition here is probably not in situ. The roof of this wing is carried on clean side-pegged jointed cruck trusses.

The rear wing contains the late 16th-century kitchen. The large fireplace here is Beerstone with a chamfered and step-stopped oak lintel and includes a large oven to the right. The lintel continues across an alcove to the left (its head here is also chamfered with step stops). This was probably a walk-in curing chamber. The ceiling is carried on a series of chamfered and step-stopped crossbeams. The roof structure is mostly 19th century but includes one original early 16th-century truss: it is a side-pegged jointed cruck truss with chamfered arch braces and it is heavily sooted from the original open hearth fire here.

Historical Ownership

The house was owned by the Chichester family in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. In the early 18th century it was acquired by Benedictus Marwood.