Preston Farmhouse

Preston Farmhouse is a substantial and impressive farmhouse dating from the early to mid-17th century, with possible older elements in parts, supplemented by a mid to late 17th-century kitchen block. The service end was modernised in the 19th and 20th centuries, and a flat-roofed extension was added around 1970.

The building is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings with granite stacks. One stack has a granite ashlar chimneyshaft; others are topped with brick. The hall features a particularly striking granite ashlar stack with weathered offsets and an unusually tall granite ashlar chimneyshaft with chamfered coping. The roof is thatched.

The house is L-shaped, with the main block facing south. It follows a three-room-and-through-passage plan. The inner room at the left (west) end functions as a kind of half basement or cellar and now has an end stack. The hall has a large projecting front lateral stack—an unusual feature for this part of Devon—and a broad newel stair projecting to the rear. The passage and service end room have been knocked together, probably in the 19th century when this end was refurbished. This room has an end stack and was probably originally a parlour. A kitchen block projects at right angles to the rear of the service end room and has a large outer lateral stack. Two-storey outshots to the rear of the hall and inner room date to the 17th century and, if not original, were added soon after construction. The main part of the roofspace was inaccessible at the time of survey, so it could not be determined whether the main block retains evidence of late medieval origins; otherwise it appears to be a single-phase early to mid-17th-century build. The kitchen block was added later in the 17th century. At the left end of the main block, a probable 19th-century outshot has been converted to an office. The inner room is unusually three storeys; the rest of the house is two storeys.

The exterior features an irregular four-window front of 19th and 20th-century casements. The oldest casement contains rectangular panes of leaded glass; the rest have glazing bars. The front passage doorway is immediately right of the hall stack and now contains a 20th-century part-glazed and panelled door behind a contemporary brick porch with a gabled slate roof. The tall steeply-pitched roof is hipped to the right and gable-ended to the left.

The interior is well-preserved and of particularly high quality. The hall is very impressive for a house of this size, with tall oak plank-and-muntin screens at each end. The upper end screen has chamfered muntins with scroll stops above bench level, and the head beam is enriched with a carved frieze of twisted bead and ribbon; the lower screen is exposed only on the passage side. The large hall fireplace is granite ashlar with an ogee-moulded oak lintel. The outstanding feature of the hall is a fine nine-panel intersecting beam ceiling with richly moulded beams and moulded exposed joists featuring bar-runout stops.

The inner room has a plain-chamfered axial beam and a segmental-headed doorframe through the rear wall. The service end room is largely the result of 19th-century refurbishment with no earlier detail visible. The kitchen has a plain soffit-chamfered axial beam and a large fireplace with a plain oak lintel and side oven. At the head of the newel stair, a small round-headed oak doorframe leads to a chamber over the outshot.

The inner room chamber has two crossbeams with broad soffit chamfers and step stops. The fireplace is blocked by a 19th-century grate. The main crosswalls on this floor are oak-framed and close-studded. The roof over the hall is inaccessible, but the bases of true cruck trusses are visible. The service end and kitchen roof is late 17th-century, comprising A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars.

Preston is a most impressive farmhouse, surprisingly grand in character. The three-storey inner room end is most unusual, and the high standard of craftsmanship displayed in the hall is particularly notable.