Nos 66-68, And No 70 (Yew Tree Cottage) Fore Street

Nos. 66-68 and No. 70 (Yew Tree Cottage), Fore Street, Bovey Tracey

This is an early or mid-16th-century building that was formerly a single house, substantially repaired in 1973, with 20th-century additions at the rear. The structure is built of stone and cob, covered with old roughcast at the rear and sides and modern render at the front. The porch has a timber-framed front wall. The roof is slate with clay ridge-tiles; those on the south-west half have low crestings. Projecting chimneystacks with offsets rise from both gable walls and the centre of the rear wall; the rear stack is of granite ashlar with a chamfered cap, and both this and the south-west gable stack have added brick shafts.

The building originally followed a three-room and through-passage plan, with an open hall in the centre heated by a fireplace in the rear wall. It is two storeys tall with a four-window front; all windows are now 20th-century wood casements. The second bay from the left contains an entrance-porch with the upper storey jettied at the front; the side-walls are corbelled out to match the jetty. Four granite steps lead from the street to the original inner doorway on the left-hand side of the porch, which has a chamfered, round-headed wood frame with durn jambs. The door is of old planks with short strap-hinges. The porch opening lintel is chamfered with pyramid stops. A bend occurs on the left side; an inserted staircase is on the right side.

The interior has been divided so that Nos. 66 and 68 contain the former hall, through-passage and lower room, while Yew Tree Cottage (No. 70) occupies the former parlour. The hall features a large hollow-moulded granite fireplace with pyramid stops at its foot (currently concealed); the back of the fireplace is formed of large ashlar blocks. Above the lintel, partly blocked by the upper-floor beams, is a relieving arch of well-cut voussoirs, with the space between it and the lintel filled with specially-cut granite pieces. The longitudinal upper-floor beam is ovolo-moulded with raised run-out stops; the joists are scratch-moulded. The partition between the hall and through-passage is a stud-and-panel screen with studs plain to the hall and chamfered to the passage; studs sit over diagonal-cut stops at the top (an unusual feature) and may originally have had them at the bottom. The partition at the upper end of the hall, next to Yew Tree Cottage, was found in 1973 to be a stud-and-panel screen chamfered on both sides with diagonal-cut stops and an ovolo-moulded head-beam, though it is unclear whether this screen remains or has been removed. On the lower side of the passage is another stud-and-panel screen with studs chamfered on both sides and having diagonal-cut stops; some studs have been brought from another screen. The lower room has a chamfered upper-floor beam with a matching half-beam against the gable wall. A large fireplace with plain granite jambs and a chamfered wood lintel, designed for a wider opening and with a step-stop at one end, is present. The rear wall contains the remains of a newel staircase set in the wall-thickness with a wooden door-frame, chamfered on the stair side, with a cranked head. Yew Tree Cottage was not inspected internally but had no upper-floor beam or joists when seen during 1973 repairs; its ground-storey fireplace has a rough wood lintel.

In 1973 the original roof-structure was complete, comprising nine trusses: seven side-pegged jointed crucks and two closed tie-beam trusses. The trusses had cranked collars and three sets of butt purlins but no ridge. The hall and lower end had one tier of well-shaped windbraces. The closed trusses, which marked off the three-bay hall roof, had a central pegged strut from collar to tie-beam, although the latter had been removed at the upper end; at the lower end a second central pegged strut ran from tie-beam to upper-floor beam and formed the centre of a close-studded partition in the second storey. The other studs were halved to the face of the tie-beam and had clearly replaced an earlier wattle-and-daub partition, the stake-holes of which were visible on the underside of the tie-beam. The roof was not smoke-blackened, though timbers had been darkened by damp in places. This detail appears to remain intact over Nos. 66 and 68; over the hall the roof-timbers (stained dark) are open to the upstairs room, though a later ceiling at the lower end makes complete certainty difficult.

Nineteenth-century title deeds refer to the whole building as Yew Tree House. On the contemporary title map it is shown occupying a large open site on this side of the street, indicating it was clearly an urban mansion of considerable importance in the town.