Higher Willsworthy Farmhouse

PETER TAVY SX 58 SW 5/74 Higher Willsworthy Farmhouse 14.6.52 GV II

Farmhouse. Circa late C16 with C17 additions. Plastered granite rubble walls. Asbestos slate roof gabled to left and rear wing, hipped to right end. Axial rubble stack to front range, wing has rubble stack at gable end and rubble projecting lateral stack on outer face. Originally longhouse plan but with complex later developments. The original building had a shippon to the left with a passage to the right beyond which was only a hall with its stack backing onto the passage and newel stairs to the rear. Probably in the early C17 a 2 storey hall bay was added at the front of its higher end. In the second half of the C17 the house was considerably remodelled with a service room taken from the passage and a part of the shippon and a large wing built to the rear of the hall comprising a larger hall heated by a lateral fireplace with a parlour beyond it heated by a gable end stack. The large 2 storey porch at the front of the former passage is probably contemporary. The original hall was probably relegated to kitchen at this stage and the old stair utilised by the new wing with a new doorway cut through. This is a somewhat unconventional extension of the house as it would be more usual to have built at the higher end of the hall assuming that it was then a level site. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 2 window front of C20 2-light casements with the windows in the large gabled 2 storey porch at the centre and the projecting hall bay at the right end. Porch has C20 plank door and a lean-to built on to the front of the house at either side. Long wing projects to rear from right-hand end. Interior inaccessible at time of survey believed to contain stone newel stairs and chamfered cross beams. Source: Devon Farmhouses III - S. R. Jones: Trans: Devonshire Association 103, 1971

Listing NGR: SX5358381697