Lower (Or Great) Cliston

Lower (or Great) Cliston is a farmhouse of early 16th-century origin, considerably remodelled and extended in the early 17th century. It stands at Sampford Courtenay and is listed at Grade II*.

The walls are rendered cob and rubble with some coursed granite ashlar at the bottom of the front wall and to the front of the wing. The roof is thatch, gabled at the front of the right-hand end and to the rear wing. There are two brick axial stacks and one to the front gable end. At the side of the rear wing is a projecting lateral stack of granite ashlar with chamfered plinth, offsets, moulded dripcourse and rim.

The building's plan reflects a complex evolution. It probably began as a two-room-and-through-passage house with the hall to the left and lower room to the right, with the hall at least originally open to the roof with a central hearth. The 17th-century alterations and additions occurred in two stages. First, the hall was floored and an inner room added with a small wing behind it containing probably a dairy. Both hall and inner room were given axial stacks. Not long afterwards in the 17th century, the rear wing was extended by another room—a good-quality large parlour reached both by independent external access and by a passage created beside the dairy leading from the hall. Adjoining this passage, a staircase was added in a projection to the inner side of the wing with a probably integral porch arrangement to the external parlour door beyond it, opening onto a rear courtyard. At the front of the lower room was a small bakehouse with no internal access from the house. The plan remains very unaltered from the 17th century.

The exterior is two storeys with an asymmetrical four-window front. The front of the right-hand end is gabled and projects slightly, with the bakehouse, now reduced in height, built in front of it. The windows are 20th-century one-, three- and four-light wooden casements with glazing bars. There is a wide 19th-century panelled and glazed door to the passage towards the right-hand end. The wing projects behind the left-hand side and has several old windows on its first floor: to the left is an 18th-century four-light square-section mullion; to the right of the chimney stack is a three-light moulded 17th-century wooden mullion window and beyond that is a simpler chamfered three-light wooden mullion. Towards the right-hand end is a 19th-century gabled porch. At the rear is a rectangular stair projection on the inner face of the wing, adjoining a porch to the parlour which has behind it a chamfered wooden doorframe with cranked head. On the end wall of this projection at first-floor level is a 17th-century chamfered wooden mullion window. There is a 20th-century single-storey addition behind the lower room to the left.

The interior is very good, with 17th-century features of particular interest. The lower room has chamfered cross beams with hollow-step stops. At the lower end of the hall, adjoining the fireplace, is part of a plank and muntin screen with chamfered muntins. Its fireplace is granite-framed and chamfered, with three chamfered cross beams with double jewel stops. The 17th-century doorframe from hall to inner room is chamfered with high jewel and concave stops. At the rear of the hall is an early 18th-century wall cupboard with arched head to glazed door and pilasters over which the cornice breaks forward. The unheated dairy has chamfered beams with hollow-step stops. The parlour has flat beams and joists which evidently were intended to take a plaster ceiling which has now gone. Its fireplace has roll-moulded granite jambs inscribed with a cross and a roll-moulded wooden lintel. Leading to the stairs is a moulded doorframe with cranked head; there are similar-shaped chamfered doorframes at the head of the stairs. The stairs have turned balusters and a closed string with moulded handrail. At the rear of the chamber above the inner room is a plank and muntin screen which may have been reused, since the diagonal stops to its chamfered muntins suggest a date in the earlier 16th century.

One original smoke-blackened truss survives over the hall, which has curved feet (plastered over), a morticed cranked collar, diagonal ridge and threaded purlins which run on into the stack. The 17th-century roof over the higher end reuses some smoke-blackened purlins at a higher level, with no truss. Above the plank and muntin screen in the rear parlour is a truss originally open with wattle-and-daub infill. Beyond it over the rear wing is a clean side-pegged jointed cruck with high morticed cranked collar chamfered on the soffit, threaded purlins and ridge.

This is a particularly well-preserved, high-quality 17th-century remodelling of an earlier house, evidently of gentry status. It retains not only very good internal features but also a very unspoilt exterior with several early windows. The listing includes the courtyard wall to the rear of the house, which incorporates a segmental-headed granite doorway.