The Old Rectory

The Old Rectory, on the south side of Trusham Broadway, is a farmhouse that served as a rectory and is now a dwelling. It dates from the late 15th to early 16th century, with a probable extension around 1700.

The building has rendered and painted cob walls and a hipped wheat reed thatched roof. It features one axial and three lateral brick stacks. The plan is single depth and L-shaped, comprising six rooms plus later short single-storey hipped wings for a pantry and rear porch, these linked by a narrow lean-to and a stair turret in the angle. The building stands two storeys high. The irregular five-window south-west front contains mostly old two and three-light timber casements with small panes. One first-floor window on the right dates to around 1700 and features leaded panes. Further windows from around 1700 appear on the first floor rear, to the pantry (now with 20th-century glass), and to the rear end of the first floor wing.

Two 17th-century oak windows survive. One, a three-light window with original chamfered mullions and leaded glass in an iron casement, is located on the outward-facing first floor of the wing. The other, originally four-light but now three-light with replaced mullions and leaded glass, is on the inner-facing wall of the wing. Two windows possibly from around 1500 also survive: a small two-light oak window in the stair turret and a cusped-headed one on the ground floor of the wing to the left of the stair turret, originally four-light but with only one mullion surviving, with a small circular pane of glass over each cusp. An original shouldered and chamfered oak doorframe is positioned to the left of this window. The front wall features doorways, with the second opening from the left and the far right opening fitted with 20th-century glazed doors; a thatched hood covers the leftmost doorway.

Interior: The roof structure features smoke-blackened jointed crucks with morticed collars and threaded purlins. The wing contains three bays, probably the earliest part, with one bay in the main part. A small dormer-like structure in the roof space at the wing, positioned in line with and under the ridge of the main part, may be a smoke louvre. The roof structure beyond the axial stack of the main part dates to the 18th century. Wall-painting of a man with angel wings wearing what appears to be a tricorn hat survives on a chimney breast in the roof space.

The best ground-floor room, to the right of the axial stack, probably served as the hall during the late 16th and 17th centuries. It contains chamfered cross beams probably from the 16th century and a plaster ceiling with cornices surrounding rectangular spaces, dating from around 1700. A large fireplace features an oak lintel (chamfer cut away), a red sandstone ashlar back, and a brick-lined oven. A mid-17th-century small panelled oak screen with cyma mouldings divides this room from a corner room in the wing. Doors dating to around 1700 are two-panelled. A semi-circular niche on plan in the back wall, with scalloped shelves and fluted pilasters, dates to around 1700. A winder stair is positioned in the corner. A lateral hearth in the room below the hall features a chamfered oak lintel from around 1700, and a bolection-moulded fireplace surround is found in the first floor room above. Rough beams in the wing, originally with a plaster ceiling, probably date from a similar period. The corner hearth suggests a possibly late 17th-century date, or slightly earlier, matching the two oldest first-floor windows. The original open hall of the circa 1500 building was probably located in the wing. The westernmost part of the house, beyond the axial stack, may have been rebuilt around 1700.

The house may be on or near the site of the Domesday Manor of Trisma (Devon Scheduled Monument Register) and forms part of a good group of buildings.