Sea Hill, Christow, Exeter

Sea Hill, Christow, Exeter

A house, formerly a farmhouse, of late medieval date with 16th and 17th century remodelling and 20th century alterations.

The building is constructed of cob and stone rubble, rendered, with a projecting granite ashlar front lateral stack featuring a granite ashlar shaft. The roofs are covered in slate, having formerly been thatched. The medieval oak roof survives, though truncated below an interwar timber roof. Interior joinery, including three plank and muntin screens, is of oak. Most windows are modern timber replacements.

The house is built on an east-west orientation on an elevated site to the north. It follows a medieval three-room and through-passage plan with a modern staircase at the west (lower) end, a rear kitchen wing, and a projecting front porch with a room above. Originally an open hall house, the lower end may always have been floored, with the hall (now the lounge) and inner room (upper end, now study) originally open to the roof timbers. The inner room featured a deep jetty projecting into the hall; the lower end also had a jetty which was later sawn off. A rear kitchen wing at right angles to the lower end is a 19th century conversion of a farmbuilding, possibly a shippon. The house adjoins Arran Cottage (not listed) at the south-east corner.

The house is of two storeys with an asymmetrical window front. The porch, positioned to the right of centre, is formed by a projecting gabled first-floor room carried on granite monoliths. The main entrance has a braced and ledged plank door with pegged oak jambs and head, opening into the passage. To the left is a lateral stack heating the hall with a rounded former bread oven. Two 20th century timber ground-floor openings stand to the left of the stack—one sash and one casement. A casement sits to the right of the porch. First-floor casements are positioned to the left of the stack, at the porch room, and to the right of the porch. A granite brace buttresses the west corner of the house from the stone boundary wall. The rear elevation has two casements. The rear kitchen wing features 21st century garden doors set within a rubble elevation below a platband, rendered above the band with casements, all beneath a hipped roof. A late 19th century outshut to the east elevation of the kitchen wing was refurbished in the 21st century.

Inside, the screen between the passage and lower end, reported to be reused from elsewhere, has been opened out to accommodate a 20th century cloakroom and staircase with stone steps down under the stair. The passage-hall screen has diagonal-cut stops and the remains of a doorframe with a cranked lintel, and an inserted window to the left with coloured leaded glass.

The hall (lounge) ceiling features a chamfered and stopped axial beam and joists with scratch-moulding to the soffits and sides. The sawn-off ends of a former lower-end jetty are visible at the lower end of the hall. The fireplace has chamfered granite jambs and lintel, with a bread oven to the left. The relieving arch, formed of well-cut masonry, rises above and is hidden behind an adjacent 17th century crossbeam, suggesting the stack may have been added before the hall was floored. The screen at the higher end has chamfered muntins stopped off at hall bench level and is over-sailed by a deep jetty with chamfered joists with run-out stops. Covered mortices in the screen mark the site of a former fixed bench. The inner room ceiling has large plain joists; at the back wall is a former doorway, now a casement, whose left jamb appears to incorporate a jowled post next to the site of a former staircase.

The modern staircase at the lower end apparently replaced a similar stair further to the rear. At first-floor level, the cob front wall opens into the room above the porch, which has an unchamfered purlin to each roofslope. Framed partitions flank the room over the hall, both with inserted doorways. In the partition to the lower end, to the right of the modern door, is a former door with a rounded head. The partition above the inner room jetty has a steel tie passing through it. The medieval roof structure survives in the rooms above the hall and inner room, with purlins continuing across the landing and bathroom at the lower end.

The ridge of the medieval roof, below a later roof, is sooted and has been sawn off to the lower (right) side of the lower-end framed partition. There is no smoke blackening on the lower-end side or the right end wall, in which the foot of a hip cruck remains embedded. Above the hall, the rafters are pegged over the diagonally set ridge and smoke-blackened. Sooted rafters also exist over the inner room, beyond the left-hand framed partition, though these could not be inspected in 2025.