Dinnacombes

Dinnacombes, Chittlehamton High Street, Chittlehampton

Reputedly a former longhouse, now a private dwelling. Built in the early to mid 16th century with late 16th-century alterations and some 20th-century alterations following a fire in 1985. The building is constructed of painted rendered stone rubble and cob beneath a thatch roof with gable ends. It features a tall front lateral hall stack with a tapered cap, and a small rendered ridge stack was inserted in the 20th century at the lower end.

The plan is a 3-room-and-through-passage design with the upper storey carried over a wide carriageway at the left (lower end) and thatched outshuts to the rear of both the lower end and hall. The hall outshuts enclose a stair turret. The building originally was a 4-bay open hall house. The lower end to the left was used as a lofted outbuilding until around 1980, when an end stack was inserted and it was only partially floored to create a connecting gallery to the chambers over the carriageway. Although the central drainage gully no longer survives, evidence of it was said to exist before the alterations. A low screen plank and muntin partition separates the lower side of the passage from the hall, with full-height plank and muntin screens at either end of the hall. A narrow unheated inner room occupies the right end.

The smoke-blackening evidence was disturbed by the 1985 thatch fire, but appears to have been relatively light, suggesting the hall remained open to the roof for only a short period before being ceiled in the late 16th century. At that time, the front stack was inserted, a 2-storey hall window bay was built out, and a winder staircase was added in a rounded stair turret at the rear of the hall towards its lower end. Probably in the 17th century, a dairy outshut was added to the rear of the upper end of the hall. In the 18th century, an outshut was added to the rear of the lower end with a fireplace added across the angle at its front left-hand corner. The hall stack contains a bread oven, though cooking may also have been done in the rear outshut.

The building is 2 storeys tall with a 4-window front range. Fenestration dates to the 19th and 20th centuries. The upper storey has all 2-light casements. The ground floor has a wide cart entrance at the left end, with 20th-century 3-light and 2-light casements to the right beneath a continuous timber lintel inserted in the former shippon entrance. A shallow porch with a slate lean-to roof and 20th-century door leads to the through-passage doorway. A 3-light hall window to the right sits in a 2-storey bay built out in line with the stack. An inner room at the right has a 2-light casement of 6 panes per light. The upper storey is blind but a concealed mullion window is known to exist. At the rear, opposite this position, is a 2-light casement, the right-hand light retaining its square leaded panes. A small 2-light timber mullion window lights the stair turret.

Despite late 20th-century alterations and the 1985 thatch fire, the interior retains considerable interest and much 16th and 17th-century fabric. The lower end has a cross ceiling beam chamfered on the upper face only, with evidence of a former partition between the carriageway and lower end on its lower face. The loft floor has been removed and replaced with partial flooring to a gallery along the rear wall, leaving the roof trusses exposed from ground floor level. Part of a plank and muntin screen survives at the front end between the passage and lower end, the muntins chamfered, with a chamfered head beam surviving the length of the passage. Inserted durns are present. A 17th-century panelled door survives to the rear through-passage doorway.

The full-height screen to the hall side of the passage has a chamfered head beam and muntins with diagonal cut stops. It is 4 planks wide to the left and 3 planks wide to the right of a flat 4-centred arched doorway with a chamfered surround and a reused 17th-century panelled doorway. A single chamfered cross ceiling beam and hall fireplace lintel with hollow step stops are present. The fireplace has dressed stone jambs and a bread oven. The screen to the upper end of the hall is 7 planks wide with a head beam and muntins chamfered on the hall side only, with diagonal cut stops. The doorway has been narrowed by the insertion of a jamb. A chamfered surround frames the straight-headed doorway from the hall to the dairy, which retains an old 3-plank door. The treads under the staircase were replaced in the late 20th century. The outshut to the rear of the lower end has a fireplace with a rounded back. The upper floor was largely remodelled in the late 20th century, but one panelled cupboard door survives in the chamber over the inner room.

The roof structure consists of a 20th-century roof superimposed over a side pegged jointed cruck truss over the hall, with the feet cut away, and 2 raised cruck trusses over the lower end featuring trenched purlins and a diagonally set ridge purlin. The timbers, where distinguishable from charring following the 1985 fire, appear only slightly smoke-blackened. The roof structure over the inner room was replaced in the late 18th or early 19th century, and the structure over the chamber above the passageway in the 20th century.