Hobhouse Farmhouse

Hobhouse Farmhouse

A farmhouse of early to mid 16th-century date with major later 16th-century and 17th-century improvements. The building is constructed of plastered granite stone rubble, with parts probably cob and others of large coursed blocks of granite ashlar. It has granite stacks, including a hall stack that retains its original granite ashlar chimneyshaft. The roof is thatch, replaced with shingles at the left end.

The house follows a 4-room plan facing south, built down a gentle slope. The service end parlour is at the downhill right (east) end with a projecting gable-end stack. The passage to the rear is now blocked by a small kitchen lobby. The hall contains a large axial stack backing onto the former passage, apparently replacing an earlier projecting front lateral stack. An unheated inner room, probably originally a dairy, lies next to the hall. The fourth room at the uphill left end is of unknown original function, though its gable-end stack appears to have been inserted or rebuilt in the 19th century. A secondary dairy outshot projects from the rear of the service and parlour.

The original early to mid 16th-century house was a 3-room-and-through-passage plan with only the inner room floored and a chamber above containing a garderobe. The rest of the house was open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by open hearth fire. In the middle or late 16th century, a large fireplace was inserted in the hall within a front lateral stack. In the early or mid 17th century the service end was refurbished as a parlour with chamber above. In the mid 17th century the hall was floored and the first fireplace replaced by another in the present axial stack, converting the hall to kitchen use. At approximately the same time the fourth room was inserted at the left end.

The exterior presents an irregular 4-window front of 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars, with a 20th-century dormer at the first floor left end. The passage front doorway is right of centre, containing a 20th-century plank door behind a contemporary gabled and shingle-roofed porch. A secondary doorway to the left end room has a similar porch incorporating two reset early to mid 16th-century oak unglazed windows: a 2-light window with cinquefoil heads on the right side and a small 2-light window with pointed arch-headed lights on the front. The main roof is gable-ended. The rear fenestration is similar except the passage chamber retains a 17th-century oak 3-light window with chamfered oak mullions.

The interior contains features from all main building phases. The parlour has an early or mid 17th-century plain soffit-chamfered axial beam and a contemporary fireplace with an oak lintel of the same finish. The hall fireplace is of granite ashlar with a side oven relined in the late 19th century, and contains two axial crossbeams with plain soffit chamfers and a series of joists and trimmers at various angles. The front wall of the hall contains an alcove provided by the first fireplace, with granite ashlar jambs but missing lintel. At the upper end, much of the original partition has been removed, though remains of an oak plank-and-muntin screen survive with chamfered muntins whose stops are hidden.

The inner room dairy retains a probably original axial beam with soffit chamfers and run-out stops. The chamber above is original and from the beginning had a garderobe alcove across the outer rear (north-west) corner, still featuring a remarkable oak 2-centred arch—a rare survival in a house of this status. The upper end extension contains a mid 17th-century soffit-chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam. The roof directly above is contemporary, comprising a side-pegged jointed cruck with cruck feet exposed close to ground level. The rest of the roof is original, dating to the early or mid 16th century. Over the hall-inner room partition is an original closed truss, an A-frame on a tie beam filled with large oak framing, clean over the inner room chamber but black on the hall side. The 4-bay portion over the remainder is smoke-blackened right to the right (east) end, carried on jointed cruck trusses held together by a pair of slip tenons only. Throughout this section the trusses, purlins, common rafters and underside of thatch are thoroughly smoke-blackened.

Hobhouse is a well-preserved late medieval farmhouse. It is exceptional for a house of this status in being aspired and built with a garderobe. It stands less than 400 metres from two other important and well-preserved farmhouses, Nattonhole and Drascombe Barton.