Little Harford

SX 89 NW CREDITON HAMLETS

7/82 Little Harford

II*

House, former farmhouse. Late C15-early C16 with later C16 and C17, extended in C18. Plastered walls partly rubble, partly cob on rubble footings; cob, stone and brick stacks all topped with brick; wheat reed thatched roof. Long low building facing north. 3-room-and-through-passage house with inner room to left (east) and C18 kitchen extension to service room on right end. Hall stack backing onto passage, projecting end-stack to inner room and kitchen stack backing onto service room. Now 2 storeys throughout. Irregularly disposed front of 4 windows of different type, size and date. Large C20 gabled porch to passage door left of centre includes reset C16 flat-arched doorway. C20 pantry projects to right with monopitch tiled roof. Hall and inner room windows further right have late C17 oak frames with flat-faced mullions with small internal ogee moulds, vertical iron bars between, leaded rectangular panes and iron casements; 3 lights to hall, 4 to inner room. C19 casements above are half dormers with gabled roofs. To left of porch a secondary door to kitchen and C19 horizontal sliding sashes to service room and kitchen and single first floor flat-roofed half dormer with C19 casement. Roof hipped to left, gabled to right. Similarly irregular fenestration on south side of C19 and C20 wooden casements with glazing bars. Good interior of a house with long and complex structural history. Original open house divided by low partitions and with open hearth fire. Roof structure and thatch over passage, hall and inner room is thoroughly smoke-blackened. Side- pegged jointed cruck over hall and lower side of passage and over hall-inner room partition there is a remarkable construction. An oak post rises from ground level to support the scarfed junction of lengths of the ridge and a braced cross-piece similarly carries the purlin joints. It is possible that a truss has been removed but since the post is sooted on all sides it must predate any fireplaces or full height partitions. The ground floor cob crosswall below may be contemporary. The clean roof over service roon indicates that it was rebuilt at the same time or after the insertion of hall fireplace. It includes a hip-cruck in former end wall. On ground floor, lower side of passage lined with C16 oak plank-and-muntin screen which may be an original low partition. Service room floored in C16 using a chamfered oak beam with step stops. Hall fireplace, built of cob and stone with plain chamfered oak lintel, probably inserted at same time since short length of oak plank-and-muntin screen alongside stack from passage to hall has flat-arched door and step stops. Hall floored with axial beam, chamfered with step stops. Inner room fireplace rebuilt in early C19 brick. C18 kitchen fireplace includes a cloam oven to left and later C19 oven to right. Intriguing late medieval farmhouse.

Listing NGR: SX8156396067