Lower Chilverton

Lower Chilverton is a farmhouse of early 16th-century origin with major improvements and extensions from the later 16th and 17th centuries. The building has plastered walls of random stone rubble, with some cob near the top, and stone rubble stacks topped with 19th and 20th-century brick. The roof is thatch and gable-ended.

The house was originally planned as a three-room-and-through-passage structure facing south, with the inner room positioned at the west end. The entrance now opens to a lobby, and the service room has been extended into the rear section of the passage. Both the inner and service rooms have end stacks, while the hall features a projecting front lateral stack. A 17th-century unheated dairy block extends from the rear of the hall, with the main stairs projecting at right angles. Secondary stairs occupy the left side of the service end stack. The building is now two storeys throughout. The front elevation is irregular with four windows of 20th-century casement design with glazing bars. The hall stack retains its original rubble chimney shaft, now extended upward with 20th-century brick. A small outshot with corrugated iron lean-to roof projects from the east end. The rear dairy block has a hipped roof and includes a 19th-century casement set within a 17th-century oak frame with chamfered reveals, missing its original two mullions.

The interior preserves a long and complex structural history. The original house was open from ground floor to roof, divided only by low partitions. One original low partition survives in situ at the lower end of the hall, and the headbeam of a second survives on the lower side of the former passage. Both are oak plank-and-muntin screens. The hall-passage screen sits on a high inserted plinth that cut away the bottom of the screen above the stops of the chamfered muntins. At the front, the present doorway cuts through the screen; the original shoulder-headed doorway is blocked but still contains an ancient plank door. The upper hall screen has also been cut away at the bottom, but here the chamfered muntins have roll stops high enough to accommodate a bench. This screen is probably mid to late 16th century and forms the lower part of a full-height large-framed partition.

The original roof appears intact from end to end, spanning five bays: one over the inner room, two to the hall, and two to the service end. The middle hall and service end trusses are side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with cranked collars; the hall truss has chamfered arch bracing. The trusses carry three sets of butt purlins with chamfered edges and pyramid stops. The two hall bays originally had two sets of windbraces, though only the upper tier survives. The roof timbers and underside of rye thatch are smoke-blackened throughout from open hearth fires. The trusses at each end of the hall appear not to be jointed crucks but have straight collars, suggesting they were built for full-height crosswalls, though these do not appear to have been constructed until the mid to late 16th century. The hall's open hearth sooted the apparently new crosswalls. The infill of the upper end crosswall is clean on the inner room side, suggesting this end was floored at that time, though the structure has since been replaced, leaving redundant joist mortises in the head of the plank-and-muntin screen. A new floor was introduced at a higher level in the first half of the 17th century, carried on a half-beam with soffit chamfering and unusual step stops. The fireplace here is a 20th-century brick replacement. The service end side infill of the lower hall crosswall is also sooted, indicating there was no first floor and a second open hearth in the service end room in the late 16th century.

The hall fireplace dates from the late 16th or early 17th century and is built of local stone blocks with a plain soffit-chamfered oak lintel. It includes a small ingle light to the right and a blocked secondary oven doorway to the left. The hall features a fine high ceiling of three bays introduced in the mid-17th century. The crossbeams are richly moulded with bar runout stops and have narrow recessed strips along the soffits. The joists are ovolo-moulded with step stops.

The service end room has a 17th-century fireplace of local stone with a high oak lintel featuring soffit chamfer and worn, possibly scroll, stops. It includes an inserted or relined late 19th-century oven with a cast-iron door. The crossbeam is probably late 17th century, with soffit chamfering and runout stops. It was originally supported at each end by posts with jowled heads, though now only the rear post survives. The pegs fixing the joists to the top of the beam are long enough to show on the inner soffit chamfer. An oak winder stair alongside the fireplace is probably late 17th century.

On the first floor, the passage chamber has a blocked early 16th-century window in the rear wall, small in size and made from a single piece of oak with a trefoil arched head. The door from the passage to the service chamber is probably late 17th century, made of oak planks with moulded cover-strips and hung on plain strap hinges. The rear block has 20th-century stairs replacing the originals. At the stairhead, a mid-17th-century oak doorframe to the hall chamber has an ovolo-moulded surround with urn stops.

The rear block roof is 17th century, comprising three bays with tall, steeply-pitched A-frame trusses having pegged lap-jointed collars.

Lower Chilverton represents a particularly well-preserved example of a typical multi-phase late medieval Devon farmhouse and ranks among the finest in the county. A slightly different structural interpretation is provided by C. Hulland in "Devonshire Farmhouse, Part V," Transactions of the Devon Association, Volume 112 (1980), pages 159–164.