Middle Clyst William Farmhouse

Middle Clyst William Farmhouse is a farmhouse of mid to late 15th-century origin with major improvements in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a 19th-century extension. It is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks (one built within an earlier timber-framed smoke bay and topped with 19th and 20th-century brick), and a thatch roof.

The house follows a 5-room-and-through-passage plan, facing south-west. The layout comprises: at the north-west end, a kitchen with a gable-end stack whose oven housing projects outward; next to it an unheated room now used as a dining room but formerly serving purposes such as dairy, buttery, or pantry; the passage; to the right of the passage, a large former hall with a projecting front lateral stack; an inner room parlour at the upper end of the hall, formerly the end room with its own disused stack; and at the right end, a 19th-century extension originally built as a cider cellar but now in domestic use.

The house has a complex structural history. The original hall house was not substantially smaller than the present structure (excluding the 19th extension). A chamber existed over the inner room from the beginning, while the rest of the house was open to the roof, divided by low partition screens and heated by an open hearth fire. An early smoke bay was created at the left end by filling the top of the truss. This may relate to the flooring over the service room before a full-height crosswall was built on the lower side of the passage, while the hall's open hearth remained in use. In the mid or late 16th century, the hall stack was inserted and the hall was floored over in the early or mid 17th century. During the 16th century the kitchen end smoke bay was replaced by a timber-framed stack, and probably in the 18th century a stone stack was built inside the framed one. In the mid to late 17th century, the inner room was rebuilt and enlarged as a parlour with a new stack.

The exterior features a 7-window front comprising mostly 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars; the right-end windows (serving the former cider cellar) are 20th-century with rectangular panes of leaded glass. The passage front doorway is left of centre, alongside the hall stack, and contains an old studded plank door behind a 20th-century gabled porch. The roof is half-hipped to the right and gable-ended to the left. The rear windows are generally similar to those on the front except for the inner room parlour, which retains a 17th-century oak window with moulded mullions.

The interior is very well preserved. Both sides of the passage are lined with close-studded crosswalls, possibly of mid 16th-century date. The ceiling of the dining room (former service room) is probably very early, comprising a series of axial large scantling joists that stop short of the passage partition and rest on the headbeam of an original low partition screen. The kitchen is floored by plain axial joists. The fireplace here is of stone rubble, heavily patched with 19th-century brick, and has a plain oak lintel. At first-floor level, extensive remains of the 16th-century timber-framed stack are visible.

The hall is a large room with a substantial fireplace; the Beerstone ashlar jambs have panelled cheeks, an oak lintel, and a moulded surround. The 17th-century crossbeams here are chamfered with scroll stops. The inner room parlour crossbeam is richly moulded with bar run-out stops. The fireplace here has been destroyed.

The late medieval roof is an exceptionally fine example, surviving essentially intact from the closed truss at the upper end of the hall to the kitchen end. It comprises five bays carried on large scantling side-pegged jointed cruck trusses, each with a single set of curving windbraces (many of which remain), and saddle apexes (Alcock's apex type C). The ridge is square-set over the service end and diagonally set over the hall and passage. The two trusses over the hall have cambered collars and chamfered arch braces, with evidence of a smoke louvre. The entire roof structure (except the inner room side of the closed truss) is heavily smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. The roof is particularly well preserved over the hall, where sooted late medieval thatch remains. The secondary crosswall over the lower side of the passage is smoke-blackened on the hall side only. The space above the collar of the left end stack is filled with heavily sooted wattling from the smoke bay. The parlour roof is also carried on a side-pegged jointed cruck, but this is a 17th-century example and is clean.

Middle Clyst William is a well-preserved multi-phase Devon farmhouse, notable for its fine late medieval roof.