Bowhayes Farmhouse

CULMSTOCK ST 11 SW 10/39 Bowhayes Farmhouse - - II Farmhouse. Late C17 - early C18, thoroughly refurbished and enlarged in the late C19. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stacks topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof. Plan and development: 4-room plan house facing north and built across the hillslope. Originally this was a 3-room plan lobby entrance house. The 2 larger heated rooms of this are the 2 right end rooms which have an axial stack between them serving back-to-back fireplaces and front lobby entrance. There was an unheated room to left. In the late C19 a fourth room was added at the left end an axial stack built serving the third room. At the same time this third room was enlarged at the expense of the adjoining original room. Also a corridor was built along the front of the same room from the lobby to new stairs. 2 storeys. Exterior: regular but not symmetrical 5-window front of C20 casements with glazing bars and the central ones are blind. The front doorway, the original lobby entrance, is right of centre and contains a C20 door with contemporary porch. Roof has low half hips each end. Interior: is largely the result of late C19 and C20 modernisations and little original carpentry is exposed. The right end room shows no carpentry detail and the fireplace here is blocked. The C19 stair rising to rear of the stack is probably a rebuild of the original. The room right of centre has an axial beam with its soffit cut back. The fireplace here was blocked in the C19 but the original was temporarally exposed in 1987. It was very large with an oak-framed surround and one timber jamb had been removed. The roofspace is inaccessible but the bases of straight principals show over the original house, their scantling large enough to suggest that the roof is carried on late C17 - early C18 A-frame trusses.

Listing NGR: ST1081312606