East Down Farmhouse

East Down Farmhouse is a farmhouse with late medieval origins, remodelled and extended in the 17th century, and subject to 20th-century renovations. The building is constructed of whitewashed rendered cob on stone rubble footings with a thatched roof, half-hipped at the left end and gabled at the right end. The thatch on the front of the main range ridge has been replaced with corrugated asbestos. An axial granite stack with granite cap serves the main body, with a gable end stack to the wing. An outbuilding adjoins the main range at the lower right end.

The present plan comprises three rooms and a through passage with a rear wing behind the hall. The core of the house was a medieval two-bay open hall, which was remodelled and extended in the 17th century when the open hall was ceiled over and the axial stack inserted, backing onto a through passage. The left-hand medieval roof truss at the higher end of the hall was replaced and the left-hand end of the roof raised. A lower end room was added, unheated and possibly used for storage. Evidence of a former newel stair, modified at a later date, survives to the rear of the hall. The rear kitchen wing may have been added later in the 17th century, confining services to the rear of the house and changing the status of the hall/kitchen to a hall/parlour.

The building is two storeys with a long irregular six-window front. The first window from the left is a raking dormer. A doorway into the passage on the front left of centre is covered by a timber lintel, with a further doorway on the front to the right of centre, also with a timber lintel. Various two- and three-light casements, probably 19th century or earlier, feature glazing bars. A small window to the left of the through passage doorway also survives. The outbuilding at the right end has a loft entrance and a ground floor doorway flanked by buttresses. A change in plane on the front at the left marks the 17th-century modification of the medieval building.

The rear elevation is particularly attractive, featuring a two-light timber mullioned window on the first floor at the rear left, a stair turret with rounded corner and a small two-light timber mullioned window in the angle between the rear wing and rear left of the house. The rear wing has a projecting gable end stack and a good oak ovolo-moulded three-light mullioned window on the first floor. To the rear right of the house the thatch is brought down as an open-fronted pentice on rough granite monoliths.

Internally, the medieval roof survives in part and the interior is rich in early and late 17th-century features. The medieval roof consists of one smoke-blackened jointed cruck truss, the collar of which was removed when the stack was inserted, and a jointed hip cruck at the higher end, the base of which is visible on the ground floor. Smoke-blackened rafters and thatch survive, with the thatch laid on an arrangement of twigs rather than the more common battens. The apex of the cruck truss is concealed by the stack. The lower end room has a probably early 17th-century pegged truss with no sooting.

The 17th-century features are of a high quality. The hall stack is granite ashlar with jambs of single pieces of granite and a lintel with a narrow chamfer. The partition wall between passage and hall, which is not taken up by the hall stack, is a plank and muntin screen. A second screen at the inner end of the hall has chamfered muntins with step stops at hall bench level and a top rail with a cyma reversa moulding. A square-headed doorway in the screen leads into the inner room. The hall has moulded cross beams with deep step stops and a similar half-beam against the stack. Doorways on the rear wall of the hall lead to the rear wing (right) and the stair (left). The right-hand door has chamfered jambs and a cambered chamfered lintel. A niche with a brick-lined drain, or possibly flue, on the front wall of the hall in a window recess is of unknown function. The inner room has two chamfered cross beams with step stops. The rear kitchen has an open fireplace with a chamfered lintel and timber posts in front of the jambs, a chamfered cross beam with step stops and exposed joists. The winding timber stair with landing has a 17th-century cambered chamfered doorway to the first floor of the main range.

The first floor has been modified in the late 20th century with a rear corridor. The partition wall on the first floor between the left-hand and middle rooms consists of timber framing with heavy studs, unusual for the region.

This is a fine example of a medieval house with a high status remodelling in the early 17th century, unusually rich in 17th-century joinery and carpentry. The hall is very complete.