West Pitt Farmhouse

West Pitt Farmhouse

A farmhouse of early 16th-century date, substantially developed during the later 16th and 17th centuries, then modernised and partly rebuilt in the late 19th century. The main structure is of plastered stone rubble with sections of cob, while the late 19th-century crosswing incorporates brick dressings. The chimneys consist of stone rubble stacks topped with 20th-century brick, except for two Hamstone ashlar shafts on the crosswing. The roof is slate, though the main block was formerly thatched.

The house follows a T-plan arrangement, with the main block facing south-east and built across the hillslope. The plan reveals the building's evolution. The original early 16th-century structure was a three-room-and-through-passage plan house. The left (south-west) end contains an inner room and former kitchen with a large gable-end stack. Between this and the hall lies a small unheated inner room, probably originally a dairy but now a secondary entrance lobby. The hall has an axial stack on what was the site of the former passage. The original passage and service end room have been rebuilt in the late 19th century as a two-room crosswing projecting front and back, though the passage has been retained and extended forward. It houses the late 19th-century main stair, which rises along the back of the hall stack. The front room of the crosswing functions as a parlour with an outer lateral stack, with a bedchamber above that has a front gable-end stack. The rear room serves as a kitchen with a rear gable-end stack. A cellar lies beneath the crosswing parlour.

The original house was open to the roof from end to end, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire, as indicated by smoke-blackening visible in the roof timbers. In the mid 16th century a chamber was built over the inner room, projecting into the open hall as a jetty. Probably in the late 16th century, the hall stack was inserted. The hall was floored over in the mid 17th century, at which time a kitchen was added at the inner room end; this kitchen was later abandoned when a new one was provided in the late 19th-century crosswing.

The building stands two storeys high. The south-east front is irregularly fenestrated with four windows on the main block section, now fitted with 20th-century casements, mostly iron-framed and without glazing bars. The secondary front doorway into the former inner room dates to the late 19th century. The crosswing front gable end has 16-pane sashes on either side of the passage front doorway, with a first-floor 12-pane sash above. Both roofs are gable-ended.

The historic structure is confined to the main block. The hall fireplace is now blocked, but its soffit-chamfered oak lintel remains visible in a cupboard. At the upper end of the hall stands an oak plank-and-muntin screen, probably an original low partition. The evidence of the mid 16th-century jetty from the inner room chamber can be seen directly above it. The mid 17th-century crossbeams display deep soffit-chamfers with bar-runout stops. The narrow inner room shows no visible carpentry, but the mid 17th-century kitchen crossbeams are identical to those in the hall. The large stone rubble kitchen fireplace features a plain oak lintel, and its oven has been relined with brick. An alcove to the left of the fireplace may have housed either a walk-in curing chamber or a newel staircase.

The roof over the former hall and inner room is carried on an early 16th-century side-pegged jointed cruck truss. Both this truss and the ridge extending over the inner room are smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. The mid 16th-century oak-framed crosswall, built when the inner room chamber was constructed, is clean on the chamber side but smoke-blackened on the hall side. The remainder of the roof structure was replaced in the 20th century.

This is a typical multi-phase Devon farmhouse, illustrating the gradual evolution and adaptation of domestic space over several centuries.