Keyndon Farmhouse Including Secondary Range Immediately To The West

Keyndon Farmhouse with Secondary Range Immediately to the West

This is a farmhouse dating from the 15th century, remodelled apparently in the early 16th century with some 17th-century work. Much of the walls are constructed of coursed and dressed slate stone rubble, with some more random rubble also present. The building has slate roofs and several early stone chimney stacks, including a very large stepped stack at the south end of the front range.

The house is built around a narrow courtyard in two main ranges, with a larger walled forecourt at the front. The front range contains a 17th-century porch in front of a wide through passage. To the right of this passage, at the north end, are the kitchen and service rooms, with a range of chambers above them reached only from a newel stair at this end of the house. To the left of the passage is a room that was probably the original hall, set on a cellar, which became a parlour in the 17th century. At the opposite side of the narrow courtyard to the west is a long service range incorporating a bakehouse and brewhouse, with chambers above.

The exterior presents a two-storey asymmetrical front of mainly 20th-century casement windows. To the left of centre is a large single-storey 17th-century porch with a rubble arch at the front and reusing two 15th-century two-centred arched doorways on either side. The ground drops at the left-hand end of the house and the porch is reached by a short flight of stone steps. There is a basement underneath the left-hand end of the house with a window with iron stanchion bars. On the northern, right-hand end wall of this range is a four-light 16th-century granite mullion window with four-centred heads. On the rear elevation of this range, a modern flue towards the northern end partially blocks a similar two-light 16th-century window. The rear doorway has a granite segmental arched doorframe with carved spandrels, which abuts a newel stair projection with a dovecote in the top. The parallel rear courtyard range has a series of 15th- or 16th-century windows with shouldered heads and iron stanchion bars, and a round-arched chamfered doorway with a draw bar to the door. On the west of this range is a small garderobe projection. A lower 16th-century addition at the south end has a granite arched doorway and small blocked lights in the gable.

Internally, the room to the left of the passage contains good panelling of circa 1630 and a Gibbs-type chimney piece of circa 1730. The kitchen at the right-hand end of this range may have a series of moulded timbers, and there is a good arched doorway in a room to the south of it. In the rear range, the bakehouse has a massive open fireplace with stone oven. There is an old wooden doorframe in the north wall and two similar doorframes with segmental heads above. A second room to the north on the first floor has a small oak-framed door, rebated on the inner side, which leads to a garderobe.

This is one of the earliest farmhouses in this part of Devon and a very unusual survival of a medieval courtyard-plan house, still retaining much of its early layout and features. Access to it was very limited at the time of survey, and most of the information has been taken from notes made by Dr. E.A. Gee, who visited the house in 1980.