Whimple Post Office

WHIMPLE BROADWAY, Whimple SY 0497-0597 10/237 Whimple Post Office 6.4.81 GV II

Post Office and post-masters house. Early - mid C16 with later C16 and C17 improvements, some C19 and C20 modernisation. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble or cob stacks topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof. Plan and development: L-plan house. The main block faces west. It is built along the street looking towards the church. It has a 4-room plan. At the left (north) end are 2 small rooms divided by an axial wall which contains a stack serving the rear room (now used as a kitchen). Next is the main living room, the former hall, with an axial stack backing onto the left rooms. At the right end is an unheated inner room, now the Post Office. A parlour projects at right angles to rear of this end and has a disused outer lateral stack which projects very slightly. The interior has been much altered in the late C19 and C20 and much of the structural carpentry has been replaced or is hidden. Nevertheless the main block appears to have had a 3-room-and-through-passage plan. The hall at least was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The hall stack was inserted in the late C16 - early C17 and the hall was floored over in the early -mid C17. The parlour wing-was probably a late C16 - early C17 addition. The passage and lower end was rearranged in the late C19 - early C20 and converted to the present arrangement. House is 2 storeys with secondary outshots to rear. Exterior: irregular 4-window front of late C19 and C20 casements, the latest without glazing bars. The right end window is a C20 shop window with glazing bars. The left end ground floor window is thought to be blocking the former passage front doorway. The ground floor window right of centre is blocking another front doorway into the former hall. Present doorway is in the right end and contains a C20 plank door. The roof is gable-ended to left. The parlour wing roof is half-hipped to front. Interior: shows mostly the result of late C19 and C20 modernisations although most of the exposed carpentry is C16 and C17. The hall crossbeam is chamfered with scroll stops, the same finish as the oak lintel of the fireplace. No carpentry is exposed in the parlour crosswing and the parlour firpelace is blocked. The original end wall of the crosswing is now internal and it contains a C17 first floor oak window with a chamfered mullion. Roof of both wings is carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses and although it was not possible to investigate the roofspace in detail smoke-blackened timbers and thatch was seen over the hall.

Listing NGR: SY0444097206