Pyne Farmhouse Including Cob Garden Wall Adjoining To South

Large farmhouse incorporating a cob garden wall adjoining to the south. The building probably has a 16th-century core with substantial alterations dating from the mid-17th century and late 17th to early 18th centuries. The house is constructed of plastered cob and rubble with rubble stacks, two of the three topped with 19th-century brick, beneath a thatched roof.

The plan follows a 4-room house with lobby entrance pattern facing south. The kitchen and service room occupy the right (east) side of the entrance, while the dining room and parlour lie to the left (west). A 2-storey front porch projects forward. The internal chimneystack arrangement comprises a large axial stack with back-to-back fireplaces serving the centre rooms, a projecting stack at the right (east) end of the kitchen, and a rear lateral stack for the parlour. A 20th-century addition extends to the rear of the kitchen and service room, containing the present main stairs, while 19th-century stairs connect the two left rooms. The right end room appears to be a late 17th to early 18th-century addition to the earlier house.

The 2-storey front elevation is not quite regular, featuring an 8-window composition. The main front displays 4 windows to the left of the porch and 3 to the right, all 19th and 20th-century replacement 2-light casements with glazing bars, though the oldest retain oak frames and contain crown glass panes. The gabled porch features a plain outer arch and a first-floor 12-pane sash window. The roof is hipped to the left and gable-ended to the right, with this right end displaying a massive projecting stack incorporating an original rubble chimney shaft and coping.

The interior contains significant 17th-century features. The front door is of C17 oak construction, studded and ledge-planked with plain strap hinges, set within what is presumably a 19th-century plain chamfered doorway. The service room to the right of the lobby retains a mid-17th-century fireplace and ceiling beams. The large rubble fireplace includes seats on both sides, and its oak lintel is soffit-chamfered with scroll stops. The soffit of the main crossbeam has been hacked back, but the half beam across the chimney breast carries a chamfer and bar-runout stops. The cob crosswall to the kitchen, which forms a former end wall, includes a 17th-century cupboard with a scratch-moulded door on wrought iron butterfly hinges. The rear wall displays a later 17th-century oak-lined cupboard with a plank door on HL hinges and a moulded architrave proud of the wall face, suggesting the space was designed for a panelled room. The kitchen fireplace incorporates a replacement oak lintel, and to its right a reset 16th-century oak round-headed door, probably originally from a former through passage, has been introduced.

Both rooms left of the entrance lobby feature plastered crossbeams and a late 17th to early 18th-century moulded plaster cornice of the same character. The central room ceiling includes rectangular panels defined by moulded bolection ribs, though its fireplace is now blocked. The end parlour contains a 20th-century Regency-style chimney piece. The end wall of this room houses a fine late 17th to early 18th-century round-headed full-height cupboard alcove with moulded timber architrave. Now completely open-fronted and missing some shelves, it is notable for its original painted head depicting a smiling sun on a blue ground amongst an almost symmetrical arrangement of foliage and flowers. The first-floor chamber above this parlour has another late 17th to early 18th-century moulded plaster cornice which breaks forward around truss feet and includes a moulded bolection rib defining a central circular panel. The first-floor chamber to the right of the lobby contains a 17th-century oak 2-light window with a chamfered mullion apparently in situ within the cob crosswall, indicating that the end room is indeed an addition.

Examination of the roof structure above the central and left rooms reveals 17th-century A-frame trusses with pegged dovetail lap-jointed collars.

From the left end of the front elevation, a high plastered cob wall on rubble footings with pantile coping extends southwards along the west side of the front courtyard. A cob-walled barn formerly enclosed the east side, though only the barn wall now remains.