Old House At Lovaton Farmhouse

Old House at Lovaton Farmhouse

A house, now used as a farm building, dating from circa the late 15th century and remodelled in the 16th and 17th centuries. The structure is built of cob on a stone rubble plinth with stone rubble patching, and is roofed in corrugated iron with gabled ends. The stacks have been truncated.

The plan is of four rooms with a through-passage. To the lower end, left of the passage, the space is divided into two rooms: the kitchen with an axial stack backing onto the passage, and a smaller, unheated lower end room. To the right of the passage is the hall, also heated from an axial stack at its lower end, though it is uncertain whether the large inner room was heated.

The building's development shows that it was originally a two-room-and-through-passage plan, with both the hall and lower end open to the roof and separated by a cob partition wall on the lower side of the passage. While the hall remained open to the roof, the lower end was floored and an axial stack was built against the partition wall, probably in the early 16th century. An axial stack was also built at the lower end of the hall in the 16th century, though the floor here was inserted in the 17th century. The large inner room is probably a 17th-century addition. The division of the lower end to form a small unheated end room was likely either a 17th or early 18th-century improvement, or more probably part of the initial remodelling phase in the 16th century, intended to provide an inner room to the lower end parlour with a solar above and a hall still open to the roof.

The exterior is of two storeys with an asymmetrical front. The higher end front wall to the right has largely collapsed. Various casements from the late 19th or 20th century are present. The passage front doorway, left of centre, has a 17th-century ovolo-and-fillet moulded frame with mason's mitres, the stops worn, and features a later plank door. At the rear, the high end wall to the left has collapsed; the lower end to the right is blind. The passage rear doorway at the centre has a chamfered frame and old plank door, with a circa 18th-century two-light casement above fitted with leaded panes. In the lower gable end on the first floor remain the wooden frame of a medieval three-light window with pointed head lights, the mullions missing.

The hall fireplace has chamfered monolithic granite jambs and a later, 17th-century timber lintel with scratch moulding. Above the fireplace lintel is the stub of a chamfered axial beam with run-out stops, and to the right of the fireplace is a partition on a chamfered timber beam with a step stop. Set back below are the remains of a plank and muntin screen with chamfered muntins, a doorway with a scratch-moulded head beam, and an old plank door. The passage contains large unchamfered joists. The kitchen fireplace has roll-moulded monolithic granite jambs, a matching moulded timber lintel, and a 19th-century oven. The axial ceiling beam is plastered over, and in the back wall is an 18th-century cupboard with fielded panel doors. The small lower end room has a roughly hewn axial beam and a straight-flight staircase. In the chamber over the lower end is a small fireplace with a curved back and unchamfered timber lintel. The cob wall between the passage and lower end is smoke-blackened on both sides and contains a small wooden doorframe with a pointed, almost round head, chamfered on the higher side and rebated for a door on the lower side.

Of the original medieval roof structure, two trusses survive: one over the lower end and another over the lower end of the hall, which has arch braces. There is no truss between them; the purlins are supported on the cob wall on the lower side of the passage. The trusses are side-pegged jointed crucks with triangular blocks at the apex, diagonal threaded ridgepiece, and threaded purlins, all smoke-blackened. The roof is wind-braced over the hall but not over the lower end. A lighter scantling wind-brace over the passage is nailed to the purlins. The collar of the lower end truss is missing. Some of the purlins survive over the lower end and over the hall, but the higher end truss or trusses and most of the common rafters are missing.