Clysthayes Farmhouse

Clysthayes Farmhouse is an early 16th-century farmhouse, with later 16th-century and 19th-century additions and alterations. The construction is a mix of cob and stone, with plastered walls and a thatched roof to the gabled ends. Originally designed with a 3-room plan including a through-passage, the higher end is to the right of the passage, and a lower-end rear wing is present. The house was initially open to the roof, with stacks inserted likely in the late 16th century. Each of the inner room and lower end had an external end stack; the hall was heated by an external front lateral stack; and the wing had its own end stack. All stacks have brick shafts, with offsets on the external stacks.

The front elevation features a 5-window range. The ground floor has 2 and 3-light casement windows, and a 1:3:1 light bay window beneath a thatched leanto roof. This leanto connects to the thatched roof of a large stone porch that provides access to the through-passage. The door surround has an ovolo moulding, and the door itself is planked and studded. The rear of the house has 19th and 20th-century casement windows, a slate-roofed leanto, and a 20th-century flat-roofed extension. A conservatory with a 3-light window sits on the outer face of the rear wing.

Inside, the passage has plank and muntin screens on either side; these are chamfered with carpenter's mitres and stopped, with scroll stops on the hall-side screen and step stops on the screen towards the lower end. Cranked doorways lead to both the lower end and the hall, as well as opposing the front entrance. The lower-end room has unstopped cross beams, and its fireplace has chamfered jambs and a wooden lintel, also chamfered with scroll stops. The hall has chamfered cross beams with scroll stops, and a fireplace with stone jambs and a wooden lintel, all with continuous ovolo moulding. A late Elizabethan panelled screen separates the hall from the inner room; while the designs on either side are similar, the detailing varies, with geometric patterns in the cornices. The original early 16th-century plank and muntin screen has been removed from between the hall and inner room and repositioned as a rear screen to the hall, although it is now separated from the hall by a later internal partition creating a rear corridor. The hall chamber has a plaster ceiling with single ribs and a large central pendant, likely contemporary with the Elizabethan screen. The roof structure features 4-jointed crucks, collars, and morticed and pegged apexes, along with trenched purlins that are heavily smoke-blackened, including some of the battening and wheat-reed thatch. According to French in Trans. Devonshire Association, 89 (1957), plate 11A illustrates the plaster ceiling.