Lambert Farmhouse

Lambert Farmhouse

Farmhouse, now house. Late 15th to early 16th century with major 16th and 17th century improvements and extensions, adjoining late 18th to early 19th century range of outbuildings, modernised 1982-4. Plastered cob on rubble footings; granite ashlar and rubble and brick stacks; thatched roof.

The main block is 2 storeys facing south, built on a 3-room-and-through-passage plan with a small inner room at the east end. A parlour wing was added behind the inner room, and a stairblock with chambers was built to the rear of the passage and hall. A range of single storey outbuildings in front of the service end were originally detached but were connected in the 19th century.

The building has a large axial hall stack backing onto the passage and gable-end stacks to the main and parlour blocks. The 4-window front, to the right of the outbuilding, comprises 19th and 20th century wooden casements of various sizes, all with glazing bars; the largest has 3 lights and faces the hall. A thatched eyebrow projects over the hall chamber window and another over a blocked inner room chamber window, which is 4-light with an oak frame containing square-sectioned mullions. The east front has a gabled dormer to the parlour chamber containing an original early 17th century oak-framed 4-light window with moulded mullions and surround. Original granite chimney shafts to the hall and parlour have moulded caps, the parlour stack featuring triple mouldings. A mounting block sits under the half-hipped end of the outbuilding.

The interior is well preserved and displays a complex structural history. Smoke-blackening of the roof from the earliest period is observed only over the hall and passage, where 2 bays are supported on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. Stylistically earlier jointed cruck (side-pegged with slip tenon) survives over the service end. The service and inner rooms were floored in the 16th century with chamfered and step-stopped beams. An oak shoulder-headed doorframe to the rear of the service room was probably reset from the passage. The inner chamber is jettied into the hall over an oak plank-and-muntin screen with upper large framing on a moulded bressumer. On the lower side of the passage, a full height cob crosswall contains an oak flat-arched doorframe and was blind at first floor level until an imported oak shoulder-headed arch was inserted in 1983.

The hall fireplace is granite with a broad-bead-moulded oak lintel, built with a passage chamber which jetties into the lower end of the hall over an oak plank-and-muntin passage screen. Remains of an upper oak-plank-and-muntin screen survive on a moulded bressumer. Narrow stairs with thick oak treads rise to the left of the fireplace. The hall was floored in the late 16th to early 17th century with a chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam and joists. An early 17th century rear stair block and adjoining dairy under a continuous lean-to roof were rearranged in 1983-4. The door from hall to stairs was blocked, the stair was rebuilt in the dairy behind the passage, the former stairwell was floored, an oak flat-arched doorframe containing an original oak studded door was moved from the rear of the passage and reset in the cob dividing wall between dairy and stairwell, and the former dairy oak window had six of its original eleven close-set diamond mullions removed to produce larger lights.

The contemporary parlour wing is gained from the hall and has a granite fireplace with an ovolo-moulded and step-stopped oak lintel on the ground floor and a 2-bay roof with a side-pegged jointed cruck truss. The hall chamber has 2 early 17th century ovolo-moulded and elaborately stopped doorframes, one to the stair block and one to the parlour chamber. Notable late 17th to early 18th century fittings include a spit rack over the hall fireplace, a spice cupboard in the hall, 2-panel doors, and an oak 4-light flat-faced mullioned window to the rear of the service chamber. Both service and inner room stacks are brick and were added in the 19th century. The outbuilding has a 3-bay roof of A-frames with pegged lap-jointed collars.

This is a good example of a multi-phase Devon farmhouse. The site is the location of the Domesday manor Lantford.