Luckworthy Farmhouse And Adjoining Outbuilding To South And Barn To West

Luckworthy Farmhouse and Adjoining Outbuilding to South and Barn to West

This is a farmhouse with adjoining barn and outbuildings at Molland, Stonemoor Lane. The main house dates from around 1500 and was altered in the early to mid-17th century, with the barn probably added in the 18th century. The house was refenestrated and its right-hand end probably partly rebuilt in the late 19th century, with outbuildings probably added at the same time. The roof was altered in the mid to late 20th century.

The house is constructed of cob on a coursed stone rubble plinth, with the right-hand gable end rendered to the front. It has a gable-ended corrugated-asbestos roof, higher to the left, formerly thatched. The barn has a hipped roof to the left. Stone rubble outbuildings with some brick dressings have a gable-ended scantle-slate roof. The stacks are rendered.

The house follows a 3-room and through-or-cross-passage plan facing south-east and falls to the right. It originated as a late-Medieval open hall house with a hall, an unheated inner room to the left, a cross passage, and a service room (now kitchen) to the right. It was originally open to the roof from end to end, probably with low dividing partitions. 17th-century remodelling included insertion of the first floor and rebuilding the dividing walls in stone. A stack was inserted in the hall backing onto the cross passage, and an end stack was inserted in the service end. A staircase was inserted in the rear of the hall and in the front left-hand corner of the kitchen. It is possible that initially only the service end and inner room end were floored, with the stack inserted in the hall which was left open to the roof (evidenced by the very high lintel to the hall fireplace), and the hall was only floored later in the 17th century. A separate first-floor ceiling may have been constructed over the inner room end at the same time (there is a rough-hewn post visible in the dividing wall in the bedroom). The eaves were raised over the hall and inner-room end, probably when the hall was floored. At the same time, or possibly later in the 17th century, the kitchen was divided to create a dairy at the rear, and a small room was made at the rear of the cross passage. The inner room was also divided, probably in the 18th century. A 3-bay barn was added to the left-hand end of the house, probably in the 18th century, and low outbuildings were added at right angles to the front of the kitchen and right-hand end in the late 19th century.

The house is 2-storey. The exterior presents an asymmetrical 4-window front, mainly with late 19th-century small-paned 2- and 3-light wooden casements (the hall window is 3-light). There is a 20th-century half-glazed cross-passage door off-centre to the right and a 20th-century half-glazed kitchen door to the left of the kitchen window. There are probably 19th-century raking buttresses flanking the hall window. The right-hand gable end has a projecting semi-circular bread oven and a lean-to addition with a segmental-headed boarded stable-type door. The barn has a pair of large boarded doors to the front (the right-hand one is 2-leaf) with a wooden lintel and an opposed boarded door to the rear with a wooden lintel. The right-hand side of the outbuilding in front of the kitchen has a slatted boarded window and the front has a boarded door with a segmental brick-arched head.

Interior features include in the hall a 17th-century deep-chamfered spine beam with scroll stops and a rendered front half beam. There is a 17th-century fireplace backing onto the passage with a high chamfered wooden lintel, the left-hand end supported on a rounded wooden corbel with chamfered edges. The fireplace has a probably 19th-century surround and was blocked in the 20th century. There is a cupboard in the left-hand wall of the hall and a window seat to the front window. The kitchen has a large blocked fireplace with a late 19th-century surround. Old boarded doors are found throughout. There is a nail-studded door at the rear of the passage, a door to the stairs at the rear of the hall with H-L hinges, and two boarded doors to the inner room (latterly divided), the right-hand one nail-studded with old strap hinges. Old oak floorboards are present in the first-floor rooms. A doorway between the central and left-hand bedrooms retains the remains of a 17th-century ovolo-moulded frame. The dairy window has bars and internal shutters.

Late-Medieval smoke-blackened roof framing consists of two side-pegged jointed cruck trusses, one to the lower side of the passage and one over the hall. Each truss has a cambered collar, mortice and tenoned apex, a V-shaped notch for the former diagonally-set ridge-piece, and trenches for two sets of former purlins. The truss at the lower end has had its collar removed. A section of Medieval roof over the hall retains lower purlins and lower parts of rafters, all smoke-blackened. There is an elbow hip cruck at the upper (left-hand) end with a V-shaped notch to take the former ridge-piece. Truncated remains of a lightly smoke-blackened rough-hewn post project from the wall dividing the hall and inner-room section of the house, possibly inserted as part of a former separate ceiling over the bedroom above the inner room, before the hall was floored. A late 20th-century roof structure sits above the old roof. The 3-bay barn roof has 20th-century trusses with principal rafters and collars.