Chaffcombe Farmhouse Including Cob Walls Adjoining To South And West

Chaffcombe Farmhouse is a former manor house of early 17th-century date, possibly with an earlier core, located at Down St Mary. It is built of plastered cob on rubble footings with some plastered rubble walls, stone rubble chimney stacks topped with 19th-century brick, and a slate roof that was formerly thatch.

The house originally followed a 3-room-and-through-passage plan facing south, with an inner room at the eastern end. A fourth room, apparently a shippon, beyond the service room has been partly demolished. A stair turret projects to the rear of the hall and inner room. The building is 2 storeys, once with attics, and has a 2-storey front porch.

The front elevation presents a regular but not symmetrical 3-window frontage with a fourth window to the porch, containing a variety of 19th-century windows. To the right of the porch is a horned 30-pane sash serving the hall, and a casement with glazing bars at the right end lights the inner room. First-floor windows above are 16-pane sashes. The porch contains a small first-floor casement with glazing bars. To the left of the porch, the service room has a 16-pane sash and an early 20th-century 4-light casement with rectangular panes of leaded glass, with a secondary plank door and side light at the left end.

The porch is largely original, featuring a richly-moulded oak outer arch with a filletted ogee and ovolo mould with worn urn stops. At first-floor level sits a half-buried soffit-moulded oak bressumer. The gable end has plain 19th-century windows: a ground-floor 4-light casement with glazing bars and a first-floor 16-pane sash. The rear elevation shows a large stair block projecting square, containing 20th-century casements, those on the east side possibly blocking narrow doorways to a now-demolished rear range. A 20th-century brick-walled bathroom outshot occupies the angle between the stair and main blocks on the west side. The hall retains an early 17th-century oak 2-light window with ovolo-moulded mullion, with another slightly smaller above. A first-floor window above the rear passage door is a late 17th or early 18th-century oak 3-light flat-faced mullion casement containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. Other windows are 19th-century casements. A stone mounting block stands against the wall immediately right of the passage door. The west gable end is clad with corrugated iron; the house evidently once extended further westward. The lower part of the rear cob wall survives, including a blocked doorway and window, with the original end wall position discernible from the house platform and falling ground beyond. This end room was once a byre, with a surviving old tethering post complete with iron tie bar.

The interior is very well preserved and complete, retaining most early 17th-century features exposed. Front and rear passage doors are 19th-century and panelled. The front door is mounted in an early 17th-century frame with a richly-moulded surround featuring urn stops, though the edges have been cut back to accommodate the 6-panel door. All three main ground-floor rooms have crossbeams with plain-chamfered soffits. The hall was apparently floored from the outset. The service room contains a large kitchen fireplace, now reduced in width, with a roughly-finished soffit chamfer to the oak lintel. The hall fireplace is constructed of granite ashlar with an oak lintel featuring a broad soffit chamfer and scroll stops. A late 17th or 18th-century cupboard to the right has a panelled door. The inner room's crossbeam soffit has been hacked back slightly; its fireplace has oak lintel and jambs made from single volcanic ashlar blocks, with a broad moulded ogee surround. An 18th-century cupboard in the front wall has shaped shelves.

The staircase is an early 17th-century closed well staircase with solid oak treads. The oak doorframe to the cupboard under the stairs has a bead-moulded surround with a plank door and vertical moulded coverstrips. A similar cupboard door with butterfly hinges appears on the first-floor landing. The doorway to the stairhead lobby has a chamfered surround with roll and double nick stops. Another plank door with strap hinges opens to the rising stairs. The stairblock has been reduced in height and must originally have been a tower providing access to attics with a small room above the stairs. A scratch-moulded arch runs from the landing to the main block, with an original first-floor corridor along the back of the main block. Original oak doorframes serve the master chamber (over inner room) and hall chamber; the former has an ovolo-moulded surround with scroll-nick stops and is partly restored, whilst the latter has a chamfered surround with roll and double nick stops and has been cut back to accommodate a larger 19th-century door. Other similar doors may remain behind 19th-century architraves. Both the master chamber and hall chamber contain small early 17th-century fireplaces with oak lintels: the former has soffit ovolo moulding with step stops, the latter is soffit-chamfered with scroll stops. Both fireplaces display decorative sgraffito plasterwork on the jambs and pental with simple geometric designs, dated approximately 1650–60. The chambers over the inner room, hall, passage, and porch retain early 17th-century moulded plaster cornices breaking forward around the front of the trusses. The roof comprises neatly squared oak timbers of large scantling carried on A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars and dovetail halvings. The service chamber was not accessible at the time of survey and may have a different roof structure, as the ridge drops slightly externally from the passage to the service room.

From the eastern end, a high cob wall with slate coping extends southwards along the right end of the garden, incorporating a reset early 17th-century oak doorframe with a richly-moulded filletted ogee and ovolo surround featuring massive urn stops. Its similarity to the front door suggests it may be the original rear passage doorway. From the western end, another high cob wall extends southwards along that side of the garden as far as Chaffcombe Farm office. A corrugated iron roofed pentice roof rests on plain timber posts.

Chaffcombe is a very well-preserved single-period small manor house. Chaffcombe is a Domesday settlement and site of a distinct medieval estate. The oldest deed in the owner's possession records Walter Redcliffe of Ottery St Mary as owner in 1698.