Hembury

Hembury is a house located in Buckland Filleigh, dating from the early to mid 17th century, with possible earlier origins and a later addition from the 17th or 18th century. The building features whitewashed cob and rubble walls, topped with a thatched roof that is hipped at the left end, half nipped to the right, and gabled at the rear wing. It has a tall brick lateral stack at the front and a projecting rubble stack at the rear gable with a brick shaft.

Originally, the house had a three-room-and-through-passage plan, but the lower end on the right has been demolished and replaced with an early 20th-century lean-to. The hall is heated by the front lateral stack and has a projecting window bay next to it. Behind the hall is an unheated inner room, and there is a large heated kitchen or parlour in the later 17th or early 18th-century wing. Stairs were inserted at the rear of the passage in the 20th century.

The exterior is two storeys high with an asymmetrical front featuring two windows, which are mid-20th-century 1 and 3-light casements. The ground floor right-hand window lights the hall and is part of a single-storey projection next to the lateral stack, which has a catslide roof over it. There is a 19th-century plank door to the right, with a lean-to against the right-hand end. The wing extends behind the left-hand end. The rear elevation includes a 17th-century three-light chamfered wooden mullion window on the first floor, with otherwise early 20th-century 2 and 3-light casements.

The interior was inaccessible during the survey but is believed to contain chamfered ceiling beams, and the hall fireplace and roof trusses may also be noteworthy. Hembury remains in a fairly unaltered state, boasting a picturesque exterior and significant landscape value.