Witherhill Farmhouse And Adjoining Front Garden Walls

Witherhill Farmhouse and Adjoining Front Garden Walls

A farmhouse with adjoining front garden walls, located at High Bickington. The main building dates from the late 15th or early 16th century, with significant alterations and enlargements from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, further modified and extended in the late 19th century.

The house is constructed of rendered cob on a stone rubble plinth, with a 17th-century addition featuring a coursed stone rubble ground floor and rendered cob first floor. Internal cob dividing walls are present throughout. The roof is covered in Welsh slate, gabled to the right and hipped to the left (probably originally thatched). External lateral stacks are of stone rubble with a hall stack having a brick top stage, and a late 19th-century red brick end stack. A 19th-century stone rubble addition at the rear has red brick dressings and a brick end stack. A 19th-century stone porch with a lean-to slate roof fronts the main entrance. The adjoining front garden walls are constructed of snecked dressed stone with red-brick dressings.

The house follows a three-room and through-passage plan, facing south-west with ground falling to the left. The original late Medieval house likely comprised only the hall and through passage, both open to the roof and heated by an open hearth, plus a service room to the left of the passage with a probable first floor but unheated. The open hall was partially floored in the late 16th century with the insertion of a first-floor chamber over the passage, jetted into the left-hand half of the hall. This new chamber appears to have been open to the roof, as evidenced by smoke blackening on the left-hand side of the stud partition. The hall was eventually completely floored in the early 17th century when an external lateral stack was inserted to the front. The right-hand end room, also with an external lateral stack to the front, was probably added in the early 17th century, although it might have replaced a former smaller unheated inner room. This room formerly had a front entrance, now blocked. A late 19th-century outshut at the rear of the service end, passage, and left-hand end of the hall contains a kitchen and scullery with an integral end stack to the left. The former service room was probably divided into a dairy and probable pantry at this time. A brick integral end stack, possibly a rebuilding of a 17th-century stack or possibly a late 19th-century addition, was inserted (the left-hand ground-floor rooms remain unheated). A late 19th-century staircase was inserted in the rear of the hall, rising from the rear of the through passage. Further late 19th-century additions include the shallow front porch and the walls enclosing the front garden. The building is two storeys with a one-storey outshut.

The front elevation features a pair of large tapered external lateral stacks with weatherings and chamfered offsets (the right-hand stack is truncated). The front is asymmetrically fenestrated with mid to late 19th-century two and three-light wooden casements. There is a recess to the right of the hall window showing evidence of a former doorway. A ground-floor 19th-century two-light wooden casement to the left (lighting the probable pantry) has wrought-iron bars and internal plank shutters. A small opening to its right features a plank hatch door. The passage doorway to the left of the hall stack has a 19th-century boarded door with a chamfered wooden frame (possibly old) featuring stepped stops, and a shallow lean-to slate-roofed porch with a wooden bench to the left-hand side. A small 2-light 19th-century wooden casement in the first floor of the right-hand gable end lights the upper storey. A small 2-light 19th-century wooden window in the left-hand end wall (lighting the dairy) has a wooden lintel, wrought-iron bars, and internal boarded wooden shutters. The outshut to the rear has a segmental-headed 19th-century three-light casement to the right and a 2-light casement to the left. A lean-to bread oven is located in the right-hand (north-west) end of the outshut.

The walled front garden features a low front wall curving round to the right-hand side and a high wall to the left-hand side, adjoining the south-west corner of the house. A wide pathway leads to the front door with low retaining walls on each side and a gateway in the garden wall.

The interior has been little altered since the late 19th century. The hall contains a plaster ceiling and a cased cross beam (bresummer of the former internal jetty). The beam appears to be chamfered with later adze marks visible just below the staircase where it is supported by a reused adzed blackened timber. A 17th-century open fireplace in the hall has stone jambs and a wooden lintel with chamfer returning to the jambs, a probable former spy window to the left, and a bread oven to the right. A bench along the right-hand and front walls has a 19th-century matchboarded back. A round-arched cream hob and a probable 17th-century cupboard with shelf and plain surround (but without door) are also in the right-hand wall. Steps up lead to a doorway into the right-hand room, fitted with a 17th-century wooden frame and old plank door. The right-hand ground-floor room has a 17th-century ceiling frame with a large chamfered spine beam and large joists. A 17th-century open fireplace with stone jambs, wooden lintel, and bread oven is present, with a blocked door to its right featuring a wooden lintel and seats in front and rear windows. The through passage has a tiled floor. A 19th-century staircase, inserted in the rear of the passage along the back of the hall, features closed matchboarded sides and stick balusters to the landing. An apparently 19th-century stud wall between the hall and passage possibly incorporates remains of an old plank and muntin screen. The left-hand ground-floor (service) room is divided axially by a 19th-century plank partition. The dairy to the rear has a stone floor, a low wooden shelf or bench along the end wall, and a window in the end wall with a seat and internal boarded shutter to one light. The 19th-century kitchen in the outshut at the rear of the left-hand end has an L-shaped wooden bench and a fireplace with bread oven and cupboard to the right. A former 19th-century scullery (now the kitchen) to the rear of the left-hand end of the hall retains an old lead water pump. 19th-century plank doors throughout have beaded wooden frames. First-floor rooms retain old floorboards with a step in the line of the former jetty.

The roof structure is a well-preserved, smoke-blackened late Medieval two-bay roof over the hall and through passage. A roughly central truss over the hall (probably raised or jointed crucks) has a mortice and tenoned cranked collar, mortice and tenoned apex, trenched purlin, and diagonally-set ridge-piece, with smoke-blackened rafters also visible. The truss is in line with the later inserted internal jetty, and the top of the partition of the inserted hall chamber is visible in the roofspace, smoke-blackened on both sides. The foot of a cruck blade is visible in a front bedroom. A later probable tie-beam is also visible (although obscured by wallpaper at the time of survey in December 1987), probably associated with the partition of the inserted hall chamber. Full-height cob partition walls rise into the roofspace (the right-hand one probably a former end wall) between the hall and right-hand room and between the passage and service rooms to the left. Evidence of smoke-blackening on the hall sides of partitions in the attic is now obscured by later whitewash. The hall ridge-piece is supported on a smoke-blackened post with a V-shaped notch, set in the cob partition. A 17th-century two-bay roof over the right-hand (upper) end room has a central truss consisting of straight principals with notched pegged apex, double-notched halved cambered collar, pairs of trenched purlins, and diagonally-set ridge-piece. The roof over the left-hand (lower) end room(s) appears to have been rebuilt in the late 19th century.

This house is a notably complete example of a Medieval Devon farmhouse and has been little altered since the late 19th century. It forms part of a complete farmstead group, also including a cartshed and trap house, linhay, barn, and stable.