Riversbridge Farmhouse Including Front Garden Area Wall To South East

Riversbridge Farmhouse, Stoke Fleming

A farmhouse dating to circa the mid-17th century, extended in circa the mid-18th century and again in circa the early 19th century. The building is constructed of local slate rubble with a Delabole slate hipped roof. A central axial stack runs through the house, its brick-built upper shaft being a later extension.

The house faces south-east and has a double-depth plan. The two front rooms are heated from back-to-back fireplaces in the central axial stack. To the rear of the right-hand room sits a stair hall entered from a doorway on the right side, with a dairy beyond. Behind the left-hand room is one large room. The original 17th-century house is thought to have comprised what is now the right-hand side of the existing building—a two-room house with through passage. The lower end room (the existing front right-hand room) was served by a lateral stack, now the axial stack. The higher end room is now unheated, with the passage between the two rooms subsequently widened into a stair hall in the late 20th century. Around the mid-18th century, the house was extended by the addition of what is now the front left-hand room, creating an L-shaped plan. The cider house on the right side at the back is probably also an 18th-century addition. The rear left-hand room, positioned in the angle of the former L-plan, is later but is believed to have been built before 1840, as it is said to be depicted on the tithe map.

The exterior is two storeys. The symmetrical south-east front has two windows: on the first floor, two circa early 19th-century 16-pane sashes; on the ground floor, a circa late 19th or early 20th-century 6-pane sash to the right and a 19th-century glazed garden door to the left with margin panes and a rectangular overlight also with margin panes. Both ground-floor openings have flat red brick arches. The left (north-west) side is slate hung on the first floor and displays an asymmetrical arrangement of 20th-century casements and a 20th-century glazed door. The right (north-east) side is asymmetrical, with two 20th-century casements on the first floor and two 20th-century 6-pane sashes on the ground floor, plus a doorway to the right within a porch in the former cider house.

The cider house is constructed of local stone rubble with a hipped scantle slate roof. Situated at right angles on the north-east side of the house, it has a ground-floor doorway left of centre with a plank door and entered stone steps leading to the loft doorway on the right. The ground-floor window retains an old frame, while the two first-floor windows are 20th-century casements. A later, probably 19th-century, outshut is attached to the right-hand end of the former cider house. The rear elevation of the house has a half-hipped end of the roof with a smaller gable to the right and three 20th-century casements.

The interior features a kitchen with an ovolo-moulded timber lintel with run-out stages. The main cross-beam has been plastered over, but the beam over the partition with the former passage (now entrance hall) is chamfered with run-out stops. The staircase is 20th-century. Ground-floor doors are 18th-century two-panel examples, and there is an 18th-century three-panel door on the first floor, with most other interior doors dating from the 19th century. The roof over the 18th-century L-shaped extent of the house and over the former cider house features straight principal rafters with halved lap-jointed and pegged collars.

The listing includes a front garden area wall to the south-east, probably dating to the 19th century. Constructed of local stone rubble, it is a low wall enclosing a rectangular garden in front of the house. On the right-hand side near the house is a gateway with stone square piers topped with slate caps and an ornate late 19th-century wrought-iron gate. The gate features diagonal and curved braces with stiles bent over the top rail as scrolls; the shafts display arrow heads over the top and middle rails.