Wanderer's Key is a Grade II listed building in the Torridge local planning authority area, England. First listed on 16 February 1989. A C17 Farmhouse. 1 related planning application.

Wanderer's Key

WRENN ID
forbidden-stair-tarn
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Torridge
Constituency
Torridge and Tavistock MP: Sir Geoffrey Cox (Con)
Country
England
Date first listed
16 February 1989
Type
Farmhouse
Address
Wanderer's Key, Saint George's Street, Beaford, EX19 8LT
OS grid reference
SS 551 150
Coordinates
50.91674, -4.06158
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: sale history · related consents · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

Wanderer's Key is a farmhouse that has been converted into a house. It dates from the mid-17th century, with a possible 18th-century addition and some alterations and additions made in the late 20th century. The building is rendered over cob and stone, featuring a thatched roof that is hipped to the left and half-hipped to the right. There are brick stacks located at the right-hand end and an axial stack off-centre to the right.

The original 17th-century layout consists of two rooms, with the larger principal room on the right (the hall) that has an integral end stack. The central front entrance is at the left-hand end, with a staircase located in the left-hand rear corner. The smaller room on the left also has an end stack, which may have been added later. An 18th-century one-room addition is found on the left, with its own entrance at the front. The dividing wall between the two rooms of the 17th-century part was likely removed in the late 20th century.

The exterior features a nearly symmetrical four-window front, with late 20th-century two-light leaded wooden casements set in the original openings. There is a wide doorway between the first and second windows from the left, which has a wooden lintel and a late 20th-century half-glazed door, along with what is probably an old rendered lean-to porch. The interior of the right-hand ground-floor room has large joists spanning from front to back and a partly rebuilt 17th-century stone open fireplace on the right, which features a chamfered wooden lintel with run-out stops. There is likely an 18th-century inserted stack in the central room, positioned at an angle. The roof space was not inspected, but the feet of substantial principal rafters are visible in the first-floor rooms. This house was formerly known as Hoopers Farmhouse and/or Town Farmhouse.

Local climate

Wanderer's Key sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 980 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 78% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 81% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 18 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 83% of listed buildings. Of these, 7 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • No EPC on record for this property
  • Sale history — 1 transaction since 1995
  • Related listed building consents — 1 application
  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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