Church House

Church House, Hartland, Stoke

A church house, subsequently divided into two cottages and now restored to a single house. The building probably dates from the later 15th or early 16th century and was significantly altered in the 19th century, including internal subdivision and refenestration.

The exterior is constructed of coursed and squared rubble with a 19th or 20th-century slate roof and end chimney stacks—one to the left with a 19th-century brick shaft, one to the right with a large rubble stack.

Plan and Use

The building has a single-room depth with three rooms on the ground floor. Direct entry is into the right room, which was the original kitchen, featuring a gable-end stack with a large hearth. The other two rooms were likely entered from the kitchen and may have been used for secure storage of parish goods.

In the 19th century, the kitchen was partially divided to provide an entrance passage with a rear doorway and a small straight-flight staircase giving access to the first floor. At the same time, the central room was given a rear lateral stack and hearth (now disused), and the left end room received a gable-end stack. The original access to the first floor, by staircase on the gable-end in the kitchen, is now blocked.

A stair-turret projects from the centre of the front elevation, providing external access to the parish room, which had two garderobes at the rear. The parish room was divided in the 19th or early 20th century to provide bedrooms and a passage running along the rear of the house.

Exterior

The building is two storeys with a 2:1:2-window arrangement. On the first floor: a 2-light 19th-century casement with horizontal glazing bars and wooden lintel to the left; next to it a 2-light 18th-century casement with square-paned facade lights, stone lintel, and chamfered stone jambs and cill (of a 15th or 16th-century window frame); a 2-light 19th-century casement with horizontal glazing bars and stone lintel, jambs and cill of an earlier window; and on the right a 12-pane 2-light casement with wooden lintel.

On the ground floor are five relieving arches, with three 19th-century casements (two with horizontal glazing bars, one of 12 panes), two under the relieving arches and one under a wood lintel. Further relieving arch windows are blocked.

The centre bay projects with a stair-turret having a lean-to slate roof, rough rubble plinth, and two small window openings. The highest is small and square, set directly under the eaves with stone jambs and cill. A narrow semi-circular-headed window opens to the left. A 4-pane casement under wooden lintel occupies the ground floor. On the side of the stair-turret is a blocked door opening with five stone steps and an iron handrail. Two other door openings exist: to the right is a chamfered stone frame with a 4-centred arch-head and plank door; to the left of the ground floor is a plank door in a 19th-century wooden frame.

The left return has a blocked gable window in a stone frame. The rear elevation has three 19th-century sash windows and a casement. A garderobe projects with a lean-to slate roof. Small semi-circular-headed lancet windows pierce each end elevation. The ground floor features a door opening with a plank door, probably 19th-century.

A gabled stair projects to the left, containing the blocked staircases rising from the kitchen.

Interior

The ground floor kitchen contains a large blocked fireplace with a small doorway to the right in a semi-circular-headed surround leading to a former smoking-chamber. The fireplace features a large wooden bressumer (presently obscured), and probably a bread oven (also presently obscured).

The central ground floor room retains simple wooden cornice around the walls and a 18th or 19th-century fireplace with a rough-hewn bressumer.

On the first floor are three doorways in wooden frames with 4-centred arch heads—two to the garderobes and one to the stair-turret. A cavetto-moulded cornice runs around the walls, now partly obscured by 19th and 20th-century divisions.

Roof

The roof comprises eight bays with straight principals resting on the wall-plate, cranked mortised collars and mortised ridge. Two rows of threaded purlins are present. A 19th-century roof has been set over the original.

Significance

This is a particularly good example of a Devon church house, retaining many early features with relatively little alteration internally and externally. It occupies a very prominent roadside position.