East Philman

East Philman is a house formerly used as a farmhouse, located in Hartland. It dates from circa 1500 with alterations probably made in the mid-17th century, and 19th and 20th century additions.

The structure comprises rendered rubble walls, possibly incorporating some cob, beneath a gable-ended asbestos slate roof. A rendered brick stack rises at the left gable-end, while a partly truncated rendered rubble lateral stack stands at the front.

The house is arranged as a two-storey building with an asymmetrical front elevation. The current plan consists of two rooms: the left-hand room heated by a stack on its end wall, and a larger right-hand room with a fireplace on its front wall and an adjoining window bay to its left. The right-hand room represents the original hall, which was built open to the roof with a central hearth. The absence of a conventional through-passage, supported by the presence of a solid wall and fireplace position, suggests the passage originally existed on the opposite, right-hand side of the hall stack. A porch was built onto the front of this stack. The surviving left-hand room was likely an inner room, with the house formerly extending further to the right with a lower end, subsequently demolished. The original structure appears to have been open to the roof throughout, divided by low partitions, of which the thick wall between the two rooms may be a survivor, despite its becoming a stud partition on the first floor and in the roof space.

The hall fireplace has an undecorated lintel suggesting a date well into the 17th century for its insertion with the hall ceiling, though this type of simple fireplace occurs throughout Hartland parish and may be considerably earlier. The hall window projection at the higher side of the hall stack appears to be a 17th-century feature found in early Hartland houses of this type.

The exterior is two storeys. The front is asymmetrical, with one three-light 20th-century casement window on the first floor and two late 20th-century casements without glazing bars on the ground floor. The right-hand windows on each floor are set in a shallow rectangular projection roughly at the centre of the front, which also incorporates the hall stack to the right. Beyond this projection is a small two-storey lean-to with a front window, formerly the porch. A 20th-century lean-to stands against the left-hand end of the house with a plank door at the front. A 19th-century outshut was added against the rear wall.

Internally, the hall features two heavy roughly chamfered unstopped ceiling beams. An open fireplace with a plain wooden lintel and roughly dressed stone rubble jambs is present, with an oven in the left-hand side. The left-hand room has a slate slab floor.

The roof structure comprises a pair of crucks over the hall, the front blade with a peg visible low down on its face, a morticed slightly cambered collar, threaded ridge and purlins, and most of the original rafters surviving, all smoke-blackened. The truss over the left-hand room is a later insertion, though smoke-blackened rafters continue beyond it.

Despite its unassuming external appearance, this house is of considerable architectural interest, preserving a substantial amount of its early fabric internally.