Cuxton Farmhouse

Cuxton Farmhouse is a substantial farmhouse in Buckland Monachorum with origins dating to the late 16th or early 17th century, substantially extended, re-fronted and remodelled in 1693, with further additions in the 19th century. The building is constructed with stone rubble walls to the rear and sides, faced with small ashlar blocks at the front. Where the roof has been raised, the walls have been built up in rubble above the ashlar. The roof is hipped and slate-covered, with two rear rubble lateral chimney stacks and one to the side of each wing.

The original house was probably planned as a three-room dwelling with through passage, the lowered end to the right, with the hall and lower room heated by rear lateral stacks. In 1693 the house underwent considerable remodelling that reflected a rise in the social or financial standing of its occupants. Wings were added to the front at each end, each containing a heated panelled room. The left-hand wing is considerably smaller, probably a family parlour, while the larger right-hand one was likely intended for entertaining guests. Behind the smaller left-hand wing the inner room was converted to a dairy or service room. The house may have been extended slightly at the lower end to incorporate a staircase with a small service room behind, and a larger parlour was added in front of the stairs and the lower half of the lower room. Outbuilding wings were added to the rear at either end during the 19th century.

The house stands two storeys and presents an almost symmetrical three-bay four-window front with wings projecting from each end, the right-hand one projecting further. The windows are predominantly two-light wooden cross mullion-transom windows with small panes; one survives on the front of the left-hand wing and three on the central recessed bay. The left-hand wing has an additional single-light window on its inner face, probably a 19th-century casement. The right-hand wing has had an early 19th-century sixteen-pane sash inserted on the ground floor where originally there were two cross mullion-transomed windows, though two such windows survive on the first floor of this wing. The ground floor window to the left of the door retains its original 1693 frame. Other windows date from the 19th and 20th centuries, with some having H-L hinges. The central recessed front bears a heavy ovolo-moulded doorframe of 1693, with a carved griffin's head at the centre of the lintel. A 20th-century gabled porch hood resting on ornately carved wooden brackets stands above this doorway, likely contemporary with it. A stringcourse above the ground floor windows incorporates a projecting stone above the keystone in the flat arch of the window below. First-floor windows also have flat arches with keystones. Rusticated quoins mark each corner and the centre of the recessed section, which breaks forward slightly. A leanto against the front of the right-hand wing has a blocked four-centred arched granite doorway in its left-hand wall. The left-hand end wall has a two-light hollow-chamfered mullion window on the ground floor, with a vestigial ovolo-moulded two-light mullion window frame above it now containing a 20th-century casement. At the rear, 19th-century outbuilding wings project from each side. Centrally positioned is a four-centred granite arched doorway, chamfered with ball stops, and to its right a wooden two-light mullion window, chamfered with iron stanchion bars; both date from the earlier build of the house.

Internally the house contains features from both the original period and the 1693 remodelling. The room to the right of the passage has a granite-framed fireplace with straight lintel and continuous roll moulding from the earlier build, together with a central chamfered crossbeam probably of the same date. An open well staircase at the end of this room dates from 1693 and features square newels with ball finials, heavy turned balusters and a closed string. The room to the front of the staircase has a bolection-moulded fireplace with pilasters above, with panelling that is simply recessed, bearing a moulded chair rail and fairly heavy cornice. The smaller parlour at the front of the left-hand side has bolection-moulded panelling above a recent chimneypiece inscribed with the date 1693, and a similar cornice; it was likely originally fully panelled. On the first floor, two rooms have bolection-moulded chimneypieces, one containing a probably contemporary cupboard with panelled doors and cocks-head hinges.

The significance of Cuxton Farmhouse lies in the quality of its internal features and very unaltered 1693 facade, and in its importance as a farmhouse remodelled in a relatively pretentious manner, demonstrating the onset of classical influence in vernacular architecture in Devon.