Smiths Farmhouse

OTTERTON OTTERY ROAD SY 08 NE 3/191 - Smiths Farmhouse - II Farmhouse. C17, possibly earlier core, modernised in late C19. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble or brick stacks topped with C19 and 20 brick and including 1 C17 sandstone ashlar chimney shaft; thatch roof. C19 brick outshots with corrugated asbestos roof. Main block faces south and has a 3-room-and-through-passage plan. However this is not the traditional late medieval layout. It appears wholly C17. The main domestic house was made up by a kitchen at the right (northern) end and hall/parlour in the centre room with the passage between. The kitchen was built with a gable end stack and the hall/parlour with an axial stack backing onto the left (southern) end room. This downhill end room was originally unheated; it was probably a dairy. In the C19 it was provided with a fireplace backing onto hall/parlour stack. The site of the C17 stair is not known. The present stair rises up the outside to rear of the hall, probably erected there in the C19 with the continuous service outshots. Main house is 2 storeys. The main house section has a symmetrical 3-window front of late C19 and replacement C20 casements with glazing bars arranged around the front passage doorway, now containing a late C19 panelled and part-glazed door. The former dairy end to left has more similar casements, one on the ground floor and 2 on the first. Roof is gable-ended to right and half-hipped to left. The original hall/parlour stack has its original stone ashlar chimney shaft topped with C19 brick. Interior is mostly the result of the late C19 modernisation but enough C17 work shows to indicate that the Victorian work was largely superficial and the C17 structure survives intact, much of it hidden by later plaster. Both original fireplaces are blocked by C19 and C20 grates. In the right room (the former kitchen) the crossbeam is plastered over but the one in the hall/parlour is exposed; a C17 soffit-chamfered beam with bar-scroll stops. The former dairy at the left end has an unchamfered axial beam. The roof throughout is carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses but the roofspace is inaccessible.

Listing NGR: SY0926089387