Lower Cleave Farmhouse

Lower Cleave Farmhouse is a farmhouse with probable 16th-century origins, situated on a south-west facing slope. The building comprises early fabric surviving from the early to mid-17th century alongside substantial late 19th-century rebuilding.

The rear wall is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings. The front of the early section is built of local stone and flint rubble laid to rough courses, while the later 19th-century rebuild uses square blocks of chert with brick dressings. Stone rubble stacks and chimneyshafts serve the building. The roof, probably originally thatched, is now covered with corrugated iron on the outshots.

The farmhouse follows a four-room plan built across the hillslope. The principal rooms occupy the two-room section to the north-west, comprising a parlour with a projecting gable-end stack and a dining room with an axial stack backing onto the dairy. A central entrance hall and main staircase lie between these rooms. This section was completely rebuilt in the late 19th century. The older section to the right is set back slightly and contains an unheated dairy and kitchen with a gable-end stack. The original farmhouse appears to have had a three-room-and-through-passage plan; the late 19th-century rebuild replaced the hall and inner room end to create the present principal rooms, with only the rear wall surviving from the earlier phase. The passage and service end kitchen were retained from the old farmhouse, though the passage was converted to a dairy or buttery. The new build required bracing with ties in the early 20th century.

The house is two storeys with rear outshots. The front elevation displays a 3:2 window arrangement. The three-window section, representing the newer build, is symmetrical about a central doorway containing a late 19th-century six-panel door beneath a secondary hood. The doorway and flanking windows feature brick segmental arches with projecting Beerstone keystones. The windows here are late 19th-century casements with glazing bars. The cross-shaped cast iron ends of the tension ties are visible, both embossed with the maker's name, Mickelburgh of Honiton. The right end of the two-window section contains probably 18th-century oak windows at first floor level, each with flat-faced mullions and rectangular panes of leaded glass. The kitchen window is an early or mid-17th-century Beerstone three-light window with ovolo-moulded mullions and hoodmould. A 19th-century doorway at the right end is sheltered behind a 20th-century porch.

The interior of the main part of the house displays only late 19th and 20th-century joinery detail. The kitchen, however, retains early to mid-17th-century carpentry. The fireplace here is blocked, but its considerable size remains evident. The crossbeam features broad chamfers with bar run-out stops. The partition between the kitchen and the dairy, buttery, or former passage is an oak plank-and-muntin screen. The roofspace over this section is inaccessible; as no trusses are visible and the roof shares the same pitch and height as the main part, the 16th or 17th-century structure appears to have been replaced.

Cleave, also known as Clive or La Clyve, was a Domesday settlement.