Great Champson Farmhouse

This is a particularly complete example of a 16th-century Devon farmhouse, notable for its fine roof structure. The house represents a traditional four-room and through-passage plan that has evolved through several building phases while retaining much of its original character and fabric.

Origins and Development

The core of the house dates from the early to mid-16th century. It was built with a hall (originally open to the roof), a through passage with gabled porch, a service room to the left, and an inner room or parlour to the right with a probable second upper room beyond. All principal ground-floor rooms had their own fireplaces with external stacks. The house faced south-east with the main rooms arranged over the lower end to the left.

The early 17th century saw the addition of a one-roomed kitchen wing to the rear of the hall (later used as a dairy). The most significant changes came probably in the early 18th century when a first floor was inserted into the formerly open hall, creating additional bedrooms. This involved inserting a new staircase at the rear of the hall with a corridor serving the central bedrooms. The house was also refenestrated at this time. A late 19th-century remodelling included internal alterations to the right-hand end rooms, insertion of a cross passage at the upper end of the hall incorporating a reused ornate screen (probably originally between the hall and parlour), and the installation of a slate fireplace dated around 1840.

The architectural evidence suggests some complexity in the building sequence. The right-hand upper-end room may be a later addition, possibly from the late 17th or early 18th century, evidenced by its later roof structure and post-1700 stack. However, a 16th-century moulded plinth runs along the front of both the parlour and this upper room, suggesting the present plan might reflect the original 16th-century layout. The roofspace over the hall was probably converted to domestic accommodation after the hall was floored in the 18th century, though no evidence of former dormer windows survives.

Exterior

The building is constructed of dressed sandstone to the front on a coursed stone rubble plinth, with coursed sandstone rubble to the sides and rear (the left-hand gable end is rendered). The rear wing is built of cob over stone rubble. The roof is gable-ended with asbestos slate, featuring a catslide extension over the rear outshut, while the porch retains its original scantle-slate roof. Sandstone stacks with offsets and weatherings serve the rooms, with the left-hand and rear stacks now rendered.

The house presents two storeys with an outshut, and a rear wing of one storey with attic. The front elevation is asymmetrical, with five windows to the first floor and four to the ground floor. A hollow-chamfered plinth on a sub-plinth runs to the right of the centre door. The left-hand service end has 19th-century three-light wooden casements to both floors with dressed-stone flat arches, and a small 20th-century wooden casement above the porch at first-floor level.

Most windows are 18th-century boxed glazing-bar sashes (some replaced in the 20th century with horns) with dressed-stone flat arches or cills. The hall window has a segmental stone-arched head. Particularly notable are the paired 12-pane glazing-bar sashes to the first-floor rooms over the hall (three panes along and two up to each leaf), divided by four vertical blind panes. Tripartite sashes (12-pane sash with flanking four-pane strips) light the hall, parlour and room above, while 16-pane sashes (four along and two up) serve the right-hand end.

The through-passage door is nail-studded and boarded with an early 19th-century beaded frame and four-part rectangular overlight. The gabled porch is a striking feature with its hollow-chamfered plinth and shaped bargeboards. The entrance has a four-centred arch with an outer continuous hollow chamfer and inner roll moulding, springing from shafts (now weathered) with moulded bases and capitals. A hoodmould and arch with dressed voussoirs complete the composition. Two stone steps lead up to the entrance, which is flanked by small narrow openings—the right-hand one with a pointed-arched head. Inside, the porch has a stone floor, plastered coved ceiling, and side openings with splayed jambs. A wooden side bench to the left has shaped legs.

Additional doorways pierce the front elevation: a recessed nail-studded boarded door (possibly 18th century and reused) between the second and third windows from the right with a five-pane rectangular overlight and dressed-stone flat arch, and a 20th-century half-glazed door between the first and second windows from right with rectangular overlight and dressed-stone flat arch.

The lean-to outshut at the rear has a central boarded door with wooden lintel, a possibly 18th-century two-light small-paned wooden casement to the right with wooden lintel, and a 20th-century two-light wooden casement to the left. The north-east end of the lean-to has ground and first-floor two-light wooden casements with stone flat-arched heads. The gable end of the rear kitchen wing features a 19th-century three-light wooden attic casement and ground-floor 19th-century wooden casement with wooden lintel.

Interior

Ground Floor

The left-hand through passage retains its moulded cross joists with runout stops and moulded wall plates. An old nail-studded boarded door leads to the stairs at the rear of the passage. Below the stairs is a late 17th-century eight-panelled door. The door to the left-hand service room is 18th century with six raised and fielded panels.

The left-hand ground-floor room has a chamfered intersecting-beam ceiling and blocked old fireplaces. The door between the through passage and hall is 19th century but incorporates reused linenfold panels.

The hall has a plastered ceiling and a slate fireplace of around 1840 on the rear wall with tall reeded consoles supporting the mantelshelf, possibly indicating the date of the 19th-century internal alterations. Two late 17th or early 18th-century wall cupboards survive. A late 17th-century cupboard in the front wall has two two-panelled doors and H-L hinges. The walls and ceiling are plastered. A small six-light window in the rear wall provides borrowed light to the rear staircase.

The through passage to the right of the hall features plank and muntin screens on each side. The left-hand screen is probably reused (possibly from the left-hand end of the wall) with heavy moulded muntins, carved linenfold panels, a moulded bottom rail, carved frieze, and a central four-centred arched doorway with carved spandrels. The door is 19th century but incorporates reused linenfold panels. The right-hand plank and muntin screen has plain chamfered muntins, a moulded bottom rail, and carved frieze. At the rear of the passage is a 19th-century door with reused linenfold panels. A late 17th-century eight-panelled door in the right-hand screen connects the passage to the former parlour.

The parlour (known as the Oak Room) is richly appointed with a nine-compartment ceiling featuring moulded intersecting beams and moulded wall beams. The 17th-century panelling (said to have been introduced, possibly reordered) has carved consoles to the frieze supporting a moulded cornice. The fireplace is 19th century in Jacobean style. An 18th-century square-headed buffet to the right has shaped shelves and a cupboard above with raised and fielded panelled doors. Panelled internal window shutters also survive. At the rear of the parlour, visible from the rear passage, is a blocked moulded Tudor-arched wooden doorway.

A probably 18th-century staircase rises between the two upper-end rooms. At its foot is an 18th-century archway with moulded sides, cornice and architrave with a shaped keyblock.

The former kitchen in the ground floor of the 17th-century rear wing has a chamfered cross beam with runout stops, a large open fireplace with dressed-stone jambs and ovolo-moulded wooden lintel, and low slate shelves (later used as a dairy).

First Floor

A moulded Tudor-arched doorway at the top of the stairs to the rear of the left-hand through passage has panelled spandrels and an old boarded door. Between the left-hand bedroom and the room over the passage is a cavetto-moulded Tudor-arched doorway with an old sole plate.

The two bedrooms over the hall contain early 18th-century doors with four raised and fielded panels, and early 18th-century window seats with raised and fielded panels and butterfly hinges. The passage to the rear of the bedrooms also has 18th-century doors with four raised and fielded panels at the top of the stairs and to the room to the rear. At the right-hand end of the rear passage is a 19th-century four-panelled door.

An 18th-century winder staircase rises from the left-hand bedroom above the hall up to the attic, with an 18th-century door at its foot featuring four raised and fielded panels.

Roof

The roof is a fine early 16th-century structure showing no smoke blackening. It consists of four bays over the hall, four bays over the service end, and four bays over the parlour end, with a probably late 17th-century three-bay roof over the far right-hand end.

The trusses over the hall (numbers four to eight from the left) are particularly fine, with principal rafters morticed and tenoned at the apices, collars with cambered tops, and moulded (cavetto and roll) arched bracing springing from a moulded wall plate. There are three pairs of threaded purlins—the lower pairs heavily moulded and the upper two pairs hollow-chamfered with runout stops—and quadrant-moulded wind braces (some removed). Most old rafters survive. Small short curved feet attached to the feet of principal rafters (above the wall) are probably morticed and tenoned.

The end trusses of the hall have arch bracing moulded on the hall side only and feature plastered stud partitions, unblackened on both sides. The soffit of the hall roof is also plastered (presumably post-16th century) between trusses, except for the right-hand bay. The mouldings on the arch bracing were cut back when the attic floor (first-floor ceiling) was inserted.

The sections of 16th-century roof over the upper and lower ends are less elaborate, probably not visible from the former open hall but just possibly visible from first-floor rooms at each end. Four trusses (numbers one, three, nine and ten) have principal rafters morticed and tenoned at the apices, collars with cambered stops, and chamfered arched bracing. Two trusses (numbers two and eleven) consist of principal rafters with short curved feet (possibly raised crucks) and cambered collars. The roof sections over both upper and lower ends have three pairs of chamfered threaded purlins and chamfered curved wind braces. The walls over the upper and lower ends are plastered up to lower-purlin level. A stud partition sits between trusses two and three, over the lower end of the cross passage.

The probably 17th-century three-bay roof over the far right-hand end has three trusses (numbers twelve, thirteen and fourteen) consisting of principal rafters with morticed and tenoned apices and notched lapped collars, a diagonally-set ridge piece, and three pairs of trenched purlins. Truss number twelve marks the division between the early 16th-century house and the probable 17th-century addition, and has a flush stud and wattle-and-daub partition.

The section of attic over the hall has old floorboards and servants' bell wires.