Wellesley Farmhouse Including Privy Approximately 15 Metres To West

SS 52 NE 10/18

BISHOPS TAWTON Wellesley Farmhouse including privy approximately 15 metres to west

GV II

Farmhouse, C17 with C19 extension and alterations. Painted rendered stone, with some cob to rear projection. Slate roof with late C19 crested ridge tiles and gable ends. Stone rubble stacks at each end with tapered cap and drip. Tall brick rear lateral hall stack enclosed in C19 2-storey dairy and salting-house. Outshut to rear. 3-room, through-passage plan with principal staircase in wide through- passage with 2-storey porch and secondary stairs and former servants garret rooms in short right-angled gable-ended projection to rear upper end forming overall L- shaped plan. 2 storeys and part attic storey. 4-window range C19 2-light casement, 6 panes per light to porch otherwise C20 casements of 3 lights. Timber lintel to straight-headed porch entrance with ovolo moulded inner arris with pyramid stops. Wooden benches to both sides of porch. Fine C17 inner doorway with cyma reversa moulding and ornate scroll stops to the durns. Plank door in C17 style of 2 leaves with cover strips and strap hinges. Rear projection has a timber chamfered mullion window of 2 lights to the attic storey. Interior: Ground floor entirely altered in C19 with register grate and C19 chimneypiece to lower end, dado matchboarding to hall and inner room. Hall doorway to through-passage has overlight with 3 stained glass panels. Dairy fittings intact with lime ash floor. C18 2-panelled and C17 8-panelled door at head of principal stairs and doorways to principal chambers over inner room have chamfered and small scroll stopped durns and 8-panelled doors. C17 joinery to cupboards to secondary stair landing. Principal roof structure of 3 phases. The earliest C17 section survives over hall and through-passage, unusually a coupled rafter roof (q.v. Great Lilly Farmhouse, Goodleigh). 16 couples with lap-jointed collars and ashlar pieces with 2 wall plates on each side separately supporting the rafter ends and ashlar pieces. The entire roof, however, was never wholly of this construction for over the hall/inner room dividing wall is a truss with straight heavy principals, but with similar jointing method to the lap-jointed collar. This forms a closed truss with a lath and plaster partition, the attic space above the inner room forming part of servants sleeping quarters. 2 tiers of purlins threaded through the partition and into this truss are carried to the gable end wall on a replacement truss with straight principals over the centre of the inner room. Over the lower end there are 3 probably C19 replacement trusses with side pegged collars, but it appears there were always heavy principals at this end as the end rafter over the hall formerly had purlins threaded into it which would have had to be carried to the lower gable end wall. Lean-to privy has triple-seated wooden lavatory fittings.

Listing NGR: SS5995426744