The Old Court House

The Old Court House is a public house, dating to 1633, located on South Molton Street in Chulmleigh. It is a building of group value. The structure is primarily unrendered stone rubble, with a thatched roof featuring gable ends and a brick axial stack to the front range. The rear has a rendered lateral stack and a slate roof with two lateral stacks. The plan is complicated by 19th and 20th century alterations, resulting in a single large room to the front, with an upper storey extending over a carriage entrance. A long rear service and former stable range creates an overall T-shaped plan. The roof structure indicates that the inn was originally larger, with the surviving section appearing to be a truncated hall heated by the rear stack, and a parlour to the right. A boxed-in headrail suggests a former division between the two rooms. The original entry partition is unclear, as a doorway has been cut through a king mullion window which would originally have been a hall window. The building was refaced in the 19th century, concealing evidence of the original entrance. A 19th-century staircase is located in a stair outshut to the rear of the hall stack, behind a kitchen and a converted stable wing. The exterior is two storeys with a three-window range. Surviving 17th-century fenestration includes ovolo-mullions, except for the ground floor right-hand window. There is a six-light king mullion window on each floor at the left end; the ground floor window's two right-hand lights have been removed and replaced with a doorway and a four-panelled door. A 4-light mullion window sits above a 3-light mullion and 4-paned window to the right. Ground floor windows have ovolo-moulded timber lintels with run-out stops. The cart entrance retains a weathered 17th-century ovolo-moulded lintel and two 19th-century plank doors. Inside, a boxed-in headrail of a screen features three ogee doorway heads. Dressed stone jambs to the lower end fireplace; the lintel has been replaced. A hall fireplace is possibly concealed by a 20th-century grate. Fine plasterwork overmantel depicting the Royal Arms of Charles I - dated 1633 - with the initials R.A. and A.S. on either side and trailing leaf and flower decoration to the frieze, remains in the chamber above the hall, which was originally a courtroom but shortened when the upper end was demolished. The roof features two 17th-century trusses with two tiers of threaded purlins, a threaded ridge purlin, and dove-tail jointed collars. One truss is close to the present gable end wall.