Ashtree Farmhouse Including Garden Walls To South

OTTERTON OTTERY ROAD ST 08 NE 3/188 Ashtree Farmhouse including garden walls to south 11.ll.52 GV II Farmhouse. Probably C16 with C17 improvements, refurbished in 1685 according to date plaque, modernised and enlarged in late C19. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stacks patched and topped with brick, 2 chimney shafts of late C17 imported Dutch brick; thatch roof, corrugated asbestos roof to plastered brick extension. C19 brick outshot with corrugated iron roof. 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south with the inner room at the left (west) end. Both inner room and service end kitchen have gable end stacks and the hall has a projecting front lateral stack. Late C19 1-room plan extension on right (eastern) end and roughly contemporary outshot to rear of hall. Main house is 2 storeys. Irregular 3-window front of late C19 casements with glazing bars with a fourth unglazed larder window to the right end extension. Late C19 panelled front door and corrugated asbestos monopitch hood. The hall stack is plastered stone rubble patched with C19 brick and with tile offsets. Above is a tall and slender chimney shaft built of small imported Dutch brick and containing a Beerstone plaque inscribed GB 1685. The coping is replaced with C19 brick. Most of the kitchen chimney shaft is also made of Dutch bricks. Roof is gable-ended to right and half- hipped to left. Interior is largely the result of the late C19 modernisation. All the fireplaces are blocked with C19 and C20 grates. There is very little carpentry detail exposed but the original layout is preserved indicating that many early features probably survive under the C19 plaster. The only beam exposed is the C17 axial beam in the service end kitchen; it is soffit-chamfered with scroll stops. The roofspace is inaccessible and the trusses are plastered over. However the curving feet of the principals indicate that the trusses have some form of cruck construction, probably C16 or C17 jointed crucks. Ashtree Farmhouse appears to be an unmodernised and well-preserved C16 and C17 farmhouse even though little of the early fabric shows.

Listing NGR: SY0907088457