Throwleigh Barton

Throwleigh Barton is a large house of early 16th-century origin with late 16th and 17th-century improvements and extensions, refurbished in the mid 19th century and modernised around 1980. It is constructed of plastered granite stone rubble with some cob, granite stacks with plastered brick chimney shafts, and a thatch roof.

The house comprises a long main block facing south-east, originally built as a 3-room-and-through-passage plan down a slight slope, though with no evidence of ever being a Dartmoor longhouse. The inner room parlour at the right end has an end stack. The hall features an axial stack backing onto the passage and a newel turret that once projected to the rear from the upper end of the hall. An early 17th-century kitchen block built at right angles to the rear of the hall now encloses this stair, with a gable end stack and a dairy outshot along the right side. The remains of a 17th-century bakehouse with an end stack stand at the right end of the parlour. The long service end has existed since at least the late 16th to early 17th century and was divided into two in the mid 19th century, providing a new parlour off the lower side of the passage served by an axial stack backing onto a stable at the left end. Extensive rebuilding since around the mid 17th century has obscured earlier development, though the hall was very likely originally open to the roof. The present structure is 2 storeys with outshots to the rear of the passage and service end.

The exterior features an irregular 5-window front of 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The central ground floor window occupies a chamfered granite frame of a 17th-century window with its mullion removed. The passage front door, positioned left of centre, now contains a 20th-century part-glazed panelled door. The stable section at the left end is blind, though the end wall contains a door with a hayloft loading hatch above. The roof is gable-ended. The bakehouse at the right end is now a single-storey structure with a glass roof. The front garden is enclosed by a low 19th-century granite stone rubble wall with rounded ashlar coping and including a pair of granite gate posts with rounded heads.

The interior demonstrates work from all main building phases. The passage contains a 20th-century fibreglass copy of an oak Tudor doorway. The hall fireplace, probably late 16th century, is large and built of granite ashlar with a hollow-chamfered surround. The hall is spacious and was probably floored in the 17th century by an extraordinarily long axial beam with roughly-finished soffit chamfers. The 17th-century kitchen to the rear of the hall has a granite fireplace with a high soffit-chamfered oak lintel including a side oven. The adjacent cupboard has been converted from a walk-in curing chamber. The crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with step stops. The parlour is also large, with a late 16th to early 17th-century fireplace of granite ashlar with a broad bead-moulded surround. The 3-bay ceiling is carried on 2 roughly-finished crossbeams. The bakehouse remains include a large granite fireplace containing 2 ovens and a soffit-chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam. The 19th-century parlour on the lower side of the passage shows no carpentry detail and has a 20th-century grate. The stable has a soffit-chamfered crossbeam with worn step stops indicating late 16th to early 17th-century construction. Joinery detail throughout the house is 19th and 20th century. A stone newel stair rises from the hall to the first floor, with a branch of wooden steps leading to a low round-headed oak doorframe to the chamber over the 17th-century kitchen. Here the 2-bay roof is carried on a face-pegged jointed cruck with slip tenon, a pegged lap-jointed collar and threaded purlins.

The oldest roof structure spans the inner room parlour. It is early 16th century, 2 bays with a truss of large scantling timbers, a cranked collar and chamfered arch bracing, and contains slots for missing windbraces. It is of Alcock's apex type M. In the late 16th to early 17th century the truss was closed with large framing including a crank-headed doorframe, and a granite fireplace was inserted into the parlour stack. The remainder of the roof was replaced in the late 17th to early 18th century and comprises a series of A-frame trusses with pegged and spiked lap-jointed collars.

Throwleigh Barton is a particularly interesting house. It is larger and grander than most 16th-century houses in the area. In the early 16th century it possessed a large hall and large inner room parlour. The arch-braced roof is also a very unusual feature in this area, indicating a degree of sophistication that must reflect an owner of higher-than-usual social status.