Little Marland

Little Marland is a farmhouse of exceptional historical importance, built approximately 1500 to 1525 with a 17th-century addition and later alterations in the late 18th century and mid-19th century. The walls are constructed of small, roughly squared coursed rubble, with a slate roof that is hipped at the left end and gabled to the right. The house has two axial brick stacks, one rendered brick stack at the left end, and a rear lateral rubble stack with a 19th-century brick shaft.

Plan and Development

The house has a complex evolutionary history, and its original form is not entirely clear. It almost certainly originated as a three-room house with a through-passage, but determining which was the higher and lower end only becomes apparent when examining the roof structure. The ground floor currently has two passages with the original hall between them and a room at either end beyond each passage. The right-hand passage contains an inserted 19th-century staircase. Beyond this passage are actually two rooms—the end room is now accessible only from outside and is very narrow with a fireplace in its end wall. The partition dividing it from the adjoining room is an insertion, though the ground level appears to drop noticeably. Behind the hall is a lean-to incorporating a 19th-century staircase. At the rear of the left-hand room extends a long wing currently used for storage, divided into two rooms without a fireplace. However, the partition wall is a 19th or early 20th-century insertion, and a good moulded 17th-century doorway and mullion window suggest the wing did not originate as an outbuilding.

A basic sequence of development can be deduced through careful examination of the house and its features, though only a measured survey would reveal the precise pattern of its evolution. The roof timbers provide relatively clear indication of the positions of hall, passage, lower room and inner room by their degree of decoration. The richly carved timbers are over the former open hall, as might be expected. To their right, a moulded truss probably indicates the position of a gallery supported on the carved jetty beam visible in the hall below. Beyond that, the trusses are simply chamfered, suggesting lower end status. This identifies the passage with the inserted staircase towards the right-hand end as the original one. A solid full-height wall divides the hall from the higher end which, judging from its moulded beams, was considered higher status than the lower end.

None of the roof timbers appear to be smoke-blackened, raising the question of whether the house ever had an open hall or whether there was a first-floor "great chamber" that merited the use of decorated roof trusses. In fact, the lack of early ceiling beams to the hall—apart from the carved beam at the right end which strongly suggests a jetty—points to an open hall with an original rear lateral fireplace. This is supported by a fragment of what appears to be an early 16th-century carved four-centred wooden fireplace lintel found by the present owners when alterations were made to the hall fireplace. It is quite possible that a great chamber did exist as an original feature, but it is more likely to have been over the inner room where the roof timbers are moulded and a 16th-century fireplace survives on the first floor in the wall adjoining the hall.

Presuming there was a jetty or gallery at the lower end of the hall, the lower room was most likely floored. Some suggestive evidence for this survives in the 16th-century moulded ceiling beams in the right-hand end room, although one seems to have been reused. It is uncertain when the hall was floored as no ceiling beams are visible there. However, the 19th-century staircase in the outshut to the rear of the hall probably replaces an earlier one, and two 17th-century doorframes at the top—one of them leading to the first-floor room of the 17th-century rear wing which has a good quality fireplace—provide clues to earlier arrangements. There is no further evidence of the purpose of this long rear wing as it is featureless on the ground floor inside. Quite likely it served a purely service function, although the arrangement of rooms remains a puzzle.

In 1799 the house was re-fronted and probably remodelled internally to create another passage at the higher end of the hall. Around the mid-19th century, some of the carved timbers were removed from the roof to make up a chimneypiece for the hall fireplace and other refurbishments were made inside, probably including the insertion of the staircase in the original passage. The rear stair projection was rebuilt in the 19th century as a large outshut. Few significant alterations have been made since the 19th century.

Exterior

The house is two storeys with an asymmetrical four-window front. Windows on the first floor and ground floor to left and right are tripartite sashes, all late 18th century apart from one early to mid-20th century copy on the first floor to right of centre and on the ground floor to right. There are two early 19th-century 16-pane sashes at centre on the ground floor; the left-hand one is in a blocked wider opening. To the right on each floor is a blocked opening with a wooden lintel. A straight joint marks the line of an addition near the left-hand end.

A late 18th-century flat doorhood with moulded cornice sits to right of centre, with 20th-century replacement wooden piers. Behind it is a late 18th-century six-panel door. There is a contemporary or early 19th-century narrower six-panel door towards the left-hand end. Below the first-floor window to left of centre is a datestone reading 1799.

The rear elevation has a lean-to at centre and a long rear wing projecting from the right end of the house. This has a 17th-century moulded wooden square-headed doorway towards its inner end and a later, probably inserted doorway to the right. On the end wall of the wing is a 17th-century two-light wooden mullion window which was originally four lights—it has a moulded frame with a chamfered mullion.

Interior

The hall fireplace surround is made up of richly carved timbers removed from the roof structure, consisting mainly of slightly curving arch braces with bosses at the top corners. The partition at the right end of the hall—at present wallpapered—consists of good quality 17th-century panelling. Above this partition is a richly decorated half-beam carved with foliage, heraldic beasts and shields. A carved cornice continues around the top of the walls but this may be 19th century. Similarly, the 19th-century six-panelled doors have carved wooden architraves which may either be reused from the roof or 19th century.

The lower end has a fireplace with moulded granite jambs and a chamfered lintel. There is a moulded half beam at the front of this room and a similar central beam which may have been reused since its soffit is depressed as if to take a partition.

At the head of the rear staircase is a 17th-century square-headed ovolo and cavetto moulded wooden doorframe. There is a similar doorway leading from the stairs to the inner first-floor room of the wing with a contemporary studded plank door. This room has a 17th-century fireplace with an ovolo-moulded wooden lintel. In the main range, the first-floor room to left of centre has a 16th-century triple moulded wooden lintel; the jambs have probably been rebuilt.

Roof

The roof is a remarkable survival of a 12-bay medieval structure of extremely high quality. It is divided into two sections—one over the inner room and one over the hall and lower end—by a full-height solid wall. The latter roof is of nine bays with ten closely-spaced trusses. The five arch-braced trusses over the hall have richly carved decoration on their soffits with the ridge and purlins also decorated. The arch braces have been removed from two trusses and a date in the 1840s on one of the trusses may indicate when this occurred. At the lower end of the hall is another arch-braced truss with cyma mouldings which faces the carved trusses and was probably above the gallery. There is a very narrow bay then to the next truss which is of slightly cruder construction though still arch-braced and chamfered on the soffit. This narrow bay relates to the through-passage below. There are three more identical trusses over the lower end. To all the trusses the collars are morticed and cranked and the purlins threaded, with diagonal ridge.

The separate roof over the higher end is three more bays with arch-braced trusses, purlins and ridge which are cavetto moulded. Generally the feet of the trusses are not visible but where they are they appear to be curved. The roof over the rear wing may be 17th century or later and consists of straight principals with lapped and pegged collars.

In the earlier 20th century a medieval stained glass window was removed from the house to the rebuilt Heanton Satchville in Huish parish, of whose estate Little Marland was formerly a part.

This is one of the most important medieval farmhouses in North Devon, preserving a remarkably complete elaborate roof structure but also preserving good features from subsequent periods and surviving in an unspoilt condition with a very attractive traditional late 18th-century facade.