Southwoods Farmhouse

ST 11 SW 10/54

CULMSTOCK HILLMOOR Southwoods Farmhouse

II

Farmhouse. Early or mid C16 with later C16 and C17 improvements. Plastered stone rubble with some cob; stone rubble stacks topped with C20 brick; thatch roof. Plan and development: 4-room-and-through-passage plan house built across a gentle hillslope and faces north-west. At the left (north-east) end there is a small unheated inner room (now used as a kitchen). The hall has a large projecting front lateral stack. Below (right of) the passage there is an unheated dairy and, at the right end, the former kitchen with a gable-end stack and staircase rising alongside. The roofspace is inaccessible and therefore it is not possible to determine the early development of the house. Nevertheless it seems likely that the early C16 house was open to the roof from end to end, heated by an open hearth fire and divided by low partitions. Around the mid C16 an inner room chamber was erected jettying into the open hall. The hall fireplace was probably inserted in the mid or late C16. The service end may have been floored about the same time but appears to have been thoroughly refurbished in the early or mid C17. The hall was floored over about the same time. Farmhouse is now 2 storeys throughout. Exterior: the service end (right of the passage) is blind and hidden by a C20 weatherboarded leanto shed. The rest has an irregular 2-window front of small late C19 and C20 casements, the latest without glazing bars. The passage front doorway is roughly central (immediately right of the hall stack). It contains a solid oak doorframe over which a C19 architrave is applied and there is a C19 plank door. The roof is gable-ended. Its ridge and eaves drop in height from hall to inner room. The rear has more casement windows similar to those on the front. Interior: is largely the result of C19 and C20 modernisations which have combined to hide a lot of the C16 and C17 fabric. Nevertheless the early layout is well- preserved and there is evidence that much early carpentry and other detail is hidden. Although no carpentry shows in the inner room the evidence of the jetty shows in the hall and the present doorway from hall to inner room reveals the headbeam of an oak plank-and-muntin screen. The passage is reported to be lined by similar oak screens. The hall fireplace is blocked by a C20 grate and the hall crossbeam has broad soffit-chamfers with step stops (one end cut off by C20 stairs). The service end kitchen has 2 axial beams with soffit-chamfers and shaped step stops. The fireplace here is blocked. The roofspace is inaccessible but a side- pegged jointed cruck truss is exposed over the hall and there is another over the kitchen. Others are probably boxed into the first floor partition. This is an attractive and interesting small Devon multi-phase farmhouse in which much of the early fabric is apparently hidden by C19 and C20 plaster.

Listing NGR: ST1095213202