No 1 Old Post Office and No 2 Town Cottage

No 1 Old Post Office and No 2 Town Cottage, Luppitt

Two adjoining cottages facing west-south-west down a hillslope. Both buildings were originally part of a single farmhouse dating from the early or mid 16th century, which underwent major improvements in the later 16th and 17th centuries. Probable 18th-century alterations saw the farmhouse divided into three cottages. Around 1960, two of these cottages were united to form No 1, and around 1980 No 2 underwent modernisation.

Plan and Development

No 1, The Old Post Office, occupies the uphill (north) end and contains a two-room plan with a central through-passage. The left room has an axial stack backing onto the passage, while the right room shares an axial stack with No 2 in the party wall, serving back-to-back fireplaces. No 2 at the south end has a one-room plan. The roofspace is inaccessible, but evidence of smoke-blackening indicates the original farmhouse began as some form of open hall house heated by an open hearth. Fireplaces and beams were inserted progressively between the mid 16th and mid 17th centuries, though much of this evidence remains hidden or confusing due to later alterations.

Exterior

Both cottages are two storeys with secondary outshots to the rear and at the north end. The front elevation presents a regular but asymmetrical three-window arrangement of 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars; the first-floor centre window contains rectangular panes of leaded glass. No 1's passage front doorway, positioned left of centre, holds a 19th-century part-glazed plank door sheltered by a 20th-century tile-roofed porch. No 2's front doorway at the right end contains a 20th-century part-glazed door behind a contemporary thatch-roofed porch. The main roof is half-hipped to the right; at the left end it is hipped and carried down over the outshot. A small woodshed with its own hipped roof projects forward from the north outshot.

Interior

Only No 1 was available for inspection. Much early fabric is obscured by 19th and 20th-century plaster, and some evidence is confusing. A probably 16th or early 17th-century crossbeam of large scantling runs along the left (north) side of the passage with a square outer corner and chamfered inner edge with step stops. It crosses the back of the axial stack in the left room. Its soffit contains a series of mortises and stave holes from a large-framed partition. The passage partition immediately to the left features an early 17th-century oak Tudor arch doorway with chamfered surround. The partition along the right (south) side of the passage and the stairs beyond are 19th-century. The crossbeam in the right room is plastered over but evidently of large scantling; the fireplace here is blocked by a 20th-century grate. The left room contains two early 17th-century chamfered and step-stopped half beams. The fireplace is stone rubble with a chamfered oak lintel. An alcove in the front wall in front of the stack marks the site of a former newel stair.

The roof of No 1 is carried on four side-pegged jointed crucks, one featuring chamfered arch braces. Part of the roofspace is known to be smoke-blackened from an open hearth; the building owner recalls piles of black sooted thatch from the last thatching, confirming this early heating method.

This is an intriguing and attractive building. The arch-braced roof truss indicates a high-status late medieval farmhouse. Great care should be taken during any building or modernisation works to avoid disturbance of 16th or 17th-century features.