Toatley Farmhouse

Toatley Farmhouse is a farmhouse of late 15th to early 16th-century origin, with later additions and improvements dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, together with modernisation undertaken around 1981. The building is constructed of plastered cob on rubble footings, with stone rubble tacks topped with 20th-century brick, and a slate roof that originally was thatched. The roof is hipped at each end.

The original plan was a 3-room-and-through-passage arrangement facing south-east, with the inner room positioned at the north-east end. A 17th-century kitchen block extends at right angles from the rear of the hall and inner room, featuring an end stack. The inner room has a rear corner stack, while the hall contains a large stack backing onto the passage. The unheated service end was formerly used as a dairy. A 20th-century stair block has been added across the back of the hall, blocking the original rear passage doorway. A single-room extension was added around 1981 at the left end, recessed from the main front and narrower than the principal structure.

The house presents an irregular 3-window front of 2 storeys with 20th-century casements—some iron-framed and some with glazing bars. The hall window is positioned higher than the other ground-floor windows. The front passage door is offset left of centre, with a 20th-century gabled porch with slate roof. The 1981 extension has one window on each floor.

The interior reveals multiple building phases. The oldest recognisable structure is the hall roof, carried on a late 15th to early 16th-century true cruck truss with cambered collar and saddle allowing for a square-set ridge purlin of Alcocks' apex type C. The truss is smoke-blackened, indicating that the hall was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. In the late 16th century, a fireplace was inserted into the hall with rubble sides and an oak lintel whose soffit was originally provided with a flattened Tudor arch; this was later mutilated by a now-removed flat-topped chimney piece. At the same period, a passage chamber was erected, jettieing into the hall as far as the chimney breast. Its bresummer is exposed with a flinted moulding of concave flutes with fillets between on the front soffit. In the rear wall a contemporary oak 2-light window with chamfered mullion is set over the position of the rear passage door, now blocked. The hall was floored in the early or mid 17th century. Its deliberately high ceiling retains an original moulded plaster cornice, the same pattern appearing in the chamber above.

The passage and former service room or dairy show no exposed carpentry detail save the roof, carried on a late 16th to early 17th-century side pegged jointed cruck. The inner room was apparently rebuilt in the late 17th or 18th century with a diagonal corner fireplace having rubble sides, a curving pentan and an oak lintel with soffit-chamfered and straight cut stops. The room has plain axial joists and is roughly finished. Its A-frame truss roof features a pegged lap-jointed collar.

The kitchen block dates from the mid to late 17th century. It contains a large rubble fireplace with an inserted or relined side oven and a soffit-chamfered and straight cut stopped oak lintel. An alcove to the left is said to mark the site of a winder stair. The crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with straight cut stops, and the roof is carried on a side-pegged jointed cruck truss. This is a typical Devon yeoman's farmhouse. Deeds survive from 1602, and from that date until 1981 the house was in continuous occupation by the Reed Family. The name is also recorded in 1330 and 1394 in the Place Names of Devon.