Coursebeer Farmhouse

SX 69 SE SOUTH TAWTON

4/137 Coursebeer Farmhouse

II

Farmhouse. Early or mid C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, an C18 extension. Cob on stone rubble footings, plastered front and exposed to rear, some brick patching, and some plastered granite ashlar in parlour wing; granite stacks, 2 of them with granite ashlar chimneyshafts and moulded coping; thatch roof. Plan and development: L-shaped building. The main block faces south-south-east, say south, and is built down a gentle slope. It has a 5-room-and-through-passage plan. Unheated inner room uphill at the left (west) end. Hall unusually has an axial stack at the upper end of the hall backing onto the inner room. Kitchen on the lower side of the passage has a projecting rear lateral stack. Below this is a small unheated room, formerly a dairy and at the right (east) end a byre added in the C18. 1-room plan parlour block projecting at right angles in front of the inner room and it has a projecting granite ashlar gable-end stack. The original house was some form of open hall house but since the roofspace is inaccessible it is not clear how much of the house was open or whether it was heated by an open hearth fire. This the hall fireplace may be original or a mid-late C16 insertion. Hall was floored in the early C17. Parlour wing probably added in the C17. It is not clear when the kitchen stack was inserted but it is probably C17. House is 2 storeys throughout. Exterior: nearly symmetrical 3-window section arranged around the passage front doorway; late C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars, the left first floor one (over the hall) rising a little into the eaves. Late C19 part-glazed 4-panel door behind a contemporary slate roofed porch with trellis walls. To right of this an external flight of stone steps lead to an agricultural store over the dairy. To right of this C20 door to dairy and at right end byre door with hayloft loading hatch over. Main roof is hipped both ends. Interior: the inner room and parlour wing were not available for inspection at the time of this survey. The rest however seems to be mostly C16 and C17 and little modernised in the C20. The upper (hall) side of the passage is lined with a C16 oak plank-and-muntin screen, the muntins chamfered but the stops worn off. The step from the passage to the hall is a massive semi-circular block of oak. The passage chamber jetties into the lower end of the hall. Hall fireplace is granite with a soffit-chamfered oak lintel. The crossbeams here are soffit-chamfered with step stops. No carpentry detail shows in the kitchen and the fireplace is blocked. Roof over the hall and passage is carried on 2 true crucks but the roofspace is inaccessible. Roof over kitchen and dairy is a late C19 replacement.

Listing NGR: SX6846694313