Burrow Hill Farmhouse

865/0/10006 02-DEC-02

OTTERY ST MARY WIGGATON Burrow Hill Farmhouse

GV II

House, formerly a farmhouse. Probably C15; remodelled circa early and later C17; altered C20. Plastered cob. Thatched roof with half-hipped and gabled ends. Axial and gable-end stacks with brick shafts. PLAN: 3-room and through-passage plan, the lower end to left heated from a fireplace in a gable-end stack, the hall with an axial stack backing onto the through-passage and the inner room with a later gable-end stack. The hall and possibly the lower end were originally open to the roof while the inner room seems to have been separated from the hall by a timber-framed partition up to the apex of the roof and might have had a chamber above. In about the early C17 the hall was floored, an axial stack built backing onto the through-passage and a stair turret built at the front with a winder stairs beside the stack. Kitchen fireplace in the stack at the low end with small room in turret to side projecting from front low end corner. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 5-window west front with various 1-, 2-, and 3-light casements with glazing bars; projection on left corner with chamfered 2-light window frame and similar 4-light window on first floor to right; projecting stair turret to left of through-passage doorway which has plank door; three large raking buttresses on front. Rear [north] 4-window range, left end recessed, casements with glazing bars, in C17 frame on right and with 4-light chamfered mullion frame above. INTERIOR: Apart from the remodelled inner room the interior is little altered. Lower [north] end room has cross-beams, one with straight-cut and run-out stops and the other at high end of room deeply chamfered with hollow step stops, gable-end fireplace with roughly chamfered bressumer and now blocked by new fireplace, former oven or smoking chamber on right and on left a small room projecting from the corner of the house with a chamber above. Through-passage with unchamfered plank-and-muntin screen on low side. Hall has deeply chamfered cross-beam with hollow step stops and blocked fireplace in stack backing onto through-passage. To left of hall fireplace newel stairs in projecting turret on front. Attic chambers ceiled. Substantial framed partition between hall chamber and inner room chamber which both have plastered over cruck-trusses and exposed purlins. Floor level of inner room chamber is higher than that of hall chamber and the lower end chamber floor is lower than that of hall. Narrow chamber over through-passage. Lower end chamber has what appears to be raised cruckm with mortice-and-tenoned collar, trenched purlins and a diagonal ridgepiece. Roof space over high end of house not inspected. A good example of a traditional late Medieval Devon farmhouse.