Mathayes Farmhouse Including Front Boundary Wall

LUPPITT ST 10 NE 6/50 Mathayes Farmhouse including front - boundary wall - II Farmhouse. Dated 1806, possibly earlier core. Local stone and flint rubble with some large dressed limestone quoins; stone rubble and brick stacks with C19 and C20 brick chimneyshafts; thatch roof. Plan: the farmhouse faces south-south-west, say south, and is built down a gentle hillslope. It has a 4-room plan and originally had a central through-passage containing the main stair. Now the passage rear doorway is blocked and the partition between it and the centre left (east) room removed. The end rooms are small and unheated service rooms, formerly dairy, buttery and the like. The larger central rooms have an axial stack each backing onto the outer service rooms. The room right of centre is now the kitchen although the size of the fireplace in the other main room suggests that it was the kitchen originally. This symmetrical layout appears to be wholly 1806 although there is reused C17 carpentry. 2 storeys. Exterior: apart from the first floor window first floor right end the house has a symmetrical 3-window front of C19 and C20 casements, the later ones without glazing bars. These windows are confined to the main rooms and are arranged about the passage front doorway which contains a C20 part-glazed door. Each end there is a doorway into the service rooms. Directly above the central doorway there is a Beerstone plaque which is inscribed in capital letters with the initials EW and TC and the legend; "All you who pass by this stone, cast an eye upon it to be seen how long ago it was put in, 1806". The roof is hipped each end. Interior has plain C19 carpentry where it is exposed. For instance the left centre room has a square-section crossbeam and a large brick fireplace with a re-used chamfered and cambered oak lintel. Roof not inspected. A narrow strip of ground along the front is enclosed by a probably original low stone rubble wall which includes a gateway to each of the 3 front doorways.

Listing NGR: ST1792208086