Bozomzeal Farmhouse Including Front Garden Area Wall To West

Bozomzeal Farmhouse, Dittisham

This is a house of medieval origins that was substantially remodelled in the mid to late 16th century, further extended in the early 17th century, and refurbished in the late 20th century. The main structure is built of local slate rubble with Beerstone windows to the front and a slate roof with a gable end to the left and a hipped end to the right, finished with red clay ridge tiles. There is a rendered axial stack to the right of centre and a slightly projecting stone rubble stack at the gable end of the rear wing.

The house is L-shaped in plan. The main range faces north-west and comprises two rooms in a long plan. The lower right-hand room is heated from a lateral stack at the back, while the larger left-hand room has an axial stack at its lower left end, backing onto an entrance hall between the two rooms. Behind the left-hand room is an integral stair turret with a rear wing beyond, which has a gable-end stack and a small unheated closet in the angle. A further wing rises on the higher ground level to the left of the rear wing, with an outshut in the angle in front of it.

It appears that the left-hand room of the main range is a mid to late 16th-century parlour wing added to a large medieval house whose hall and lower end were originally disposed at right angles to the left-hand end but have now been demolished. The integral rear wing with its stair turret and the closet in the angle are part of this mid to late 16th-century extension. The wing on the left side of the rear wing is probably also late 16th or early 17th century and contemporary with the addition of the lower right-hand rooms and the refenestration of the front. This may have been when the medieval hall range was demolished or abandoned. The later outshuts and outbuildings at the left end incorporate some medieval fabric. The roof of the existing main range was replaced in the early 20th century. In the late 20th century the house was refurbished internally, leaving little evidence of 17th-century work, and the lower right-hand room has been partitioned to form a central stair hall with a late 20th-century staircase.

The house is two storeys with a regular but asymmetrical four-window west front. The ground floor has two early 17th-century ovolo-moulded stone mullion three-light windows to the left with headmoulds and relieving arches over. At the lower right-hand end of the front is a facsimile window in reconstituted stone, also with a relieving arch over. To the right of centre is the doorway, which has a 20th-century plank door and a stone porch with a rebuilt gable and slate roof. The first floor has four late 20th-century two-light casements with glazing bars set within earlier openings with stone hoodmoulds. At the left-hand end of the front projects a small single-storey wing with a hipped slate roof and a 20th-century casement in the end wall.

The rear elevation shows a gable-end wing to the right with a two-storey projection in the angle over which the main roof is carried down as a catslide. To the left in the main range is a slightly projecting lateral stack with a shaft rebuilt in brick. To the right of the stack is a first-floor doorway with a late 19th or early 20th-century glazed door. The inner face of the rear wing has late 20th-century three-light casements and a 20th-century glazed door, and the projection in the angle has small 19th and late 20th-century two-light casements. The gable end of the rear wing has a projecting stack alongside an earlier corbelled stack which has been truncated. The outer side of the rear wing has a blocked arched opening on the ground floor.

The listing includes a front garden area wall to the west, a low stone rubble wall enclosing a small garden, probably dating to the 19th century.

Interior features are substantial. The parlour has a large fireplace at its lower end with dressed slate jambs, a chamfered timber lintel with hollow step stops, and an oven; the ceiling is plastered. At the back to the left of the parlour is a fine Beerstone doorway with a two-centred cyma-hollow-cyma moulded arch with pyramid stops, leading to a stair tower integral with the rear wing. A chamfered segmental arch with pyramid stops is positioned at the bottom of the Beerstone newel stairs. The doorway into the rear kitchen wing has dressed slate with a two-centred arch. The kitchen has a chamfered cross-beam without stops and a gable-end fireplace with a dressed unchamfered limestone low segmental arch bearing graffito initials. The stair hall contains a 20th-century staircase.

The right-hand end room has a rear lateral fireplace with a renewed timber lintel. The chamber above has a Beerstone fireplace with roll and hollow moulding and a straight head, with some graffiti present. The chamber over the parlour has a Beerstone fireplace with roll and hollow moulding and a straight head, also with some graffiti; a later partition has been inserted in this chamber. The chamber over the wing is open to a collar rafter roof with arch braces marked into the wall plates. The twelve trusses appear to have been re-erected, as the carpenter's marks are not in sequence. A further truss in the rear wing over the main range has a similar truss without arch braces, and in the wing to the north-east is another similar truss. In the gable end of the rear wing is a fireplace with dressed stone jambs with rounded corbels supporting a large slate-on-edge lintel.

The roof over the main range was replaced in the 20th century, except for remains of a truss at the rear left (north-east) end, which appears to have been a collar rafter roof. The lower section of rafter survives with a moulded arch brace (cyma and hollow mouldings) supported on a section of moulded wall-plate which breaks forward under the brace as a corbel. The timbers are not smoke-blackened.