Lower Chuggaton

Lower Chuggaton is a farmhouse, dating probably to the 16th century, although it was unoccupied and used as a cattle shelter in April 1985. The structure is built of rendered stone rubble and cob, with a corrugated asbestos roof featuring gable ends. There’s a truncated lateral hall stack at the front, another at the right gable end, and a tall lateral brick stack at the rear, heating the lower end. Originally a 3-room farmhouse with an open hall plan, the hall/cross-partition has been removed. A small projecting stair turret and a dairy outshut are located at the rear of the hall. The staircase has been removed from the rear of the cross-passage, and a further narrow stair turret, also without stairs, at the rear of the inner room suggests an early partition likely for separate occupation, as a doorway has been built through the front wall of the inner room. The building is two storeys high and has a 4-window front. Plank doors lead to the cross-passage and the inner room. Inside, a creamery remains intact against the rear wall of the hall, and bread ovens are in the lower end. The hall ceiling features a single longitudinal beam chamfered on the hall side only, slightly set in from the former cross-passage, possibly indicating a former jetty. Tenoned to this beam are a series of close-set joists, each chamfered only on the forward-facing arrises, with traces of possibly 16th century painted decoration in the form of scrolls and chevrons along the front of each joist. The inner room has chamfered and scroll-stopped durns to the stair turret door surround. The roof structure largely remains, with a single raised cruck truss over the hall. Purlins are carried on solid cob partitions rising to the apex of the roof at the lower end of the cross-passage and between the hall and inner room. Heavy smoke-blackening indicates the building was originally entirely open to the roof, with subsequent flooring added in stages.