Stockadon Farmhouse

Stockadon Farmhouse

Farmhouse dating from the early 16th century with high quality improvements from the later 16th and early 17th centuries. The building is constructed of plastered cob on rubble footings with cob or stone stacks fitted with 19th and 20th century brick chimney shafts, and a thatched roof.

The house follows a 3-room-and-through-passage plan, facing south-west, with an inner room at the north-west end and a single storey dairy wing to the rear of the service room. It is now 2 storeys high. The front elevation is irregular with 5 windows to the first floor and 3 to the ground floor. The service room stack projects at the right end, and the service room itself breaks forward from the main front, featuring a late 19th century casement with glazing bars on each floor. The passage door lies immediately to the left. The hall contains a late 19th century 12-pane sash window. The remaining windows are casements, including 3 possibly 18th century first floor casements with flat-faced mullions. Between the first floor windows to the hall and passage chamber are 5 pigeon holes, with a sixth positioned further right. The roof is hipped to the right.

The rear elevation contains a late 16th to early 17th century richly-moulded oak 6-light mullion-and-central-transom window to the hall, with leaded panes of glass, some of which are original. The inner room has a similar pair of 2-light windows which are now blocked but remain visible from the interior. Behind a 20th century porch, the rear passage door has a late 16th to early 17th century oak segmental-headed frame and includes a contemporary plank door with internal strap hinges and external moulded cover strips arranged to form 9 panels.

The interior is of exceptional quality and demonstrates a long and complex structural history. The oldest part comprises 2 roof bays over the hall, carried on 2 early 16th century arch-braced and side-pegged jointed cruck trusses, both with small yokes at the apex to carry a diagonally-set ridge (Alcock's Type L2). This section of the roof is smoke-blackened throughout, indicating that the original house was heated by an open hearth fire and probably divided only by low partitions. A secondary side-pegged jointed cruck truss over the inner room dates probably to the late 16th to early 17th century, as does the full-height large-framed crosswall over an oak plank-and-muntin screen which fills an original truss at the upper end of the hall.

The inner room features an ovolo-moulded crossbeam with keeled step stops. The chamber above has a 17th century moulded plaster cornice taken down the sides of the roof truss. Evidence of a disused dormer window to the rear survives.

The hall fireplace, positioned left of the oak window, is constructed of volcanic ashlar with an ogee-moulded surround, though it has been hacked off the oak lintel. A 19th century oven was inserted into the right side. The oak plank-and-muntin screen to the passage features a flat-arched door.

Two crossbeams in the hall are both elaborately moulded with ornate stops but differ in design. The upper end beam displays a series of bead mouldings with recessed soffit, and the stops carry a similar series of bead mouldings across. The lower end beam features bead mouldings with ogees, recessed soffit, and ornate acanthus leaf stops. These moulded beams are unusually high quality for such a relatively small farmhouse and date probably to the early to mid 17th century.

The passage contains richly moulded half beams on each side, with only part of the oak plank-and-muntin screen surviving on the lower side. The service room has a late 16th century chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam, while the roof above is 19th century work.

This is an important and well-preserved multi-phase Devon farmhouse which preserves several features of surprisingly high quality.