The Poplars

The Poplars is a house located in Black Torrington, dating from the early 16th century, with alterations in the 17th century and extensions in the 18th and 19th centuries. The building features rendered cob and rubble walls and has a gable-ended slate roof, with corrugated asbestos on the rear wing. There are three brick stacks: one at each end and one in the middle.

The layout consists of a two-room-and-through-passage plan. The hall, located to the right, was originally open to the roof with a central hearth but is now heated by a stack that backs onto the passage. The original form of the lower room is unclear, but its roof truss is dark, suggesting it may have been open to the roof before being ceiled or divided from the hall. The hall stack and ceiling were likely added in the early 17th century, along with a fireplace in the lower room. A shallow two-storey porch, which may also date from the 17th century, is slightly projecting and located to the left of the centre, featuring a square doorway and slit windows on either side. The early 20th-century part-glazed door is situated behind the porch.

The exterior is two storeys high with an asymmetrical four-window front, showcasing early to mid-20th-century two-light casements. Inside, the right-hand room has a chamfered ceiling beam and an open fireplace with a replaced wooden lintel, while the left-hand room features a rough wooden lintel over its fireplace. Several 18th-century two-panel doors remain on the first floor.

The roof over the hall retains a smoke-blackened truss with substantial straight principals, threaded purlins, a ridge, and a cambered collar halved on with a notch joint. The roof truss over the left-hand room is darkened but not black; its morticed collar has been replaced with a simple lapped one, and its purlins were trenched. A later roof structure has been built over the original one.