Lower Birbrook Farmhouse

TAWSTOCK SS 52 NE 4/56 - Lower Birbrook Farmhouse 25.2.65 II Farmhouse. Late C15 or early C16 with late C16 remodelling. Rendered stone and cob. Asbestos slate roof with gable ends. Rendered stack at left end and tall front lateral hall stack with offsets and tapered cap, heightened in brick. 3 room and through-passage, former open hall house with stair turret enclosed in C19 rear outshuts with tiled roofs. 2 storeys. 3 window range. C19/C20 fenestration. 2 light casement 2 panes per light on each floor to left of porch with slated pentice roof butting into stack with 4 panelled door, the upper ends glazed. 2 light casement 6 panes per light over hall casement of 3 lights 2 panes per light. Upper end which is recessed slightly has 2 light casements on each floor, 2 panes per light above, 6 panes per light below. Interior Axial chamfered ceiling beams to inner room and hall, the latter with hollow step stops. Jowled heads to the jambs to the hall/inner room doorway, the arched lintel having been removed. Creamery niche with small cupboard to right above integral bench which runs round into the front window recess. C19 slate dairy fittings intact to rear outshut. Chamfered door surround with scroll stops to stair turret. Original dog leg staircase with wide treads and stair rail with moulded handrail, splat balusters with bar stops to the tops of arris arns and chamfered scroll-stopped newels. Said to be three moulded plasterers marks to chamber over lower end partition wall. Roof structure over lower end replaced in C20. Over the hall is a jointed cruck truss with steeply cranked morticed and tenoned collar with threaded purlins and ridge purlin. Closed lath and plaster partition to lower end of hall. The hall/inner room partition also rises as a full height partition to a closed truss with principals of much lighter scantling lapped to form and X apex with a thin morticed and tenoned collar. The timbers over the hall and inner room are all heavily smoke-blackened and it seems probable that the house was formerly open to the roof from end to end, with a phased insertion of floors, the higher floor level to the chamber over the hall suggesting the latter was the last to be ceiled.

Listing NGR: SS5767525716