Anchoring Farmhouse Including Cider House And Stables Adjoining To South

OTTERTON OTTERY ROAD, Otterton SY 0885 7/197 Anchoring Farmhouse including 30.6.61 cider house and stables adjoining to south GV II Farmhouse with adjoining cider house and stables. Late C15-early C16 with major C16 and C17 improvements, refurbished in late C19. Cider house and stable block are mid C19. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; cob and stone rubble stacks topped with C19 brick, one is disused; thatch roof, slate to cider house, stables and outshot. 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing east-south-east, say east, with inner room at the right (northern) end. The inner room has a disused end stack, hall has a projecting front lateral stack and the service end room has a cob gable-end kitchen stack. C19 outshots to rear. Cider house is built onto the left (south) end and the stables built at right angles to rear of the left end of the cider house. House is 2 storeys. Irregular 4-window front of C20 casements with glazing bars. Front passage doorway is left of centre and contains a late C19 part-glazed and panelled door. To right of the doorway is the hall stack. It is plastered but its shape with chamfered plinth and weathered offsets suggest that it is C17 and built of stone. Small fire window in the right side. The roof is half-hipped to right and gable-ended to left. The cider house is lower, it contains a single C20 window and is gable-ended. The stables contain C19 plank doors and windows. Interior is largely the result of C19 and C20 modernisations but the original plan is preserved and early features probably survive under plaster. No beams are exposed and the hall crossbeam is boxed in. The inner room fireplace is blocked by a C19 chimneypiece and the stack is disused. The hall fireplace is lined with C19 brick and its lintel is hidden. The kitchen fireplace is blocked but its massive size is evident. The cupboard alongside to right may be a former walk-in curing chamber. The roof is mostly original and very unusual. It is propped over the service end by 2 C19 trusses but there is no truss over the rest of the house. Instead the ridge and single set of purlins are of large scantling and, unusually long. These carry the couples of common rafters. This roof and the underside of the thatch is all heavily smoke-blackened indicating that the late C15-early C16 house was open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. The carpentry details in both the cider house and stables are similar. Several timbers are elm, the rest oak. The crossbeams are neatly finished and have narrow soffit chamfers with runout stops. The roof consists of A-frame trusses with spiked lap-jointed collars. They sit on interrupted tie beams.

Listing NGR: SY0846785512