Chapple Farmhouse

SS 52 SE 4/258

YARNSCOMBE Chapple Farmhouse

II

Former farmhouse. Circa late C16/early C17. Stone rubble and cob, whitewashed and rendered; slate roof, gabled at ends and at end of rear right wing; front lateral stack with a tall dressed stone shaft, end stacks to main range, end stack to rear right wing. Plan: Overall L plan. The main range, facing east, is a 3 room and through passage arrangement, lower end kitchen to the left (south); hall heated from the front lateral stack with an adjacent hall bay; inner room parlour to the right (north). A rear outshut with a catslide roof may be integral and contains the stair, rising behind the hall with access from the rear of the through passage. A rear right dairy wing with accommodation over is probably C18 or C19; C20 rear lean-to to main range. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 4 window front with the front door to the through passage to left of centre. Windows a mixture of C19 and C20 timber sashes and casements with glazing bars. Interior: Slate floors to the passage and left hand room. The left hand room has an open fireplace with a brick lintel and jambs: a void adjacent to the stack may be a former smoking chamber. The left and right partitions of the hall rise to the apex of the roof as closed trusses. The hall retains chamfered crossbeams with bar scroll stops and an open fireplace with a hollow-moulded lintel, stone rubble jambs and a clay-lined bread oven. The hall bench survives, returning in the hall bay and supported in brackets; the bench back is made up of re-used C17 panelling. A small closet opens off the rear of the hall, within the outshut: the present stair cuts into this closet, which may have been a buttery. A probable C16 2-light window with splayed internal jambs in the closet now looks into the dairy but is presumably in a former external wall. The window consists of a pair of narrow rectangular unglazed slits in a single piece of oak. The parlour has chamfered cross beams matching those in the hall and a fireplace with an ovolo-moulded stopped lintel. The dairy retains slate-topped benches. Roof: 2 curved foot trusses survive corresponding to the left and right partitions of the hall. The trusses have lap-dovetailed collars and later timbering above. Both trusses are associated with framed partitions, one of these has been exposed recently and was evidently constructed with shuttered cob infill. A very complete traditional house, attractive externally and with good interior features.

Listing NGR: SS5643921894