Farm Office, Garden Walls And Railings East Of Yeo Farmhouse

SX 68 NE CHAGFORD

3/94 Farm Office, garden walls and railings east of Yeo Farmhouse 23.12.86 GV II

Farm office and front garden walls. Late C19. The office and its furniture by Crocker of Exeter. Office of granite stone rubble with granite ashlar dressings and slate roof with crested ridge tiles. Garden walls of granite with cast iron railings and gates. Plan: Small 1-room plan office with gable end front facing south-south-east, say south, and with rear end stack. From rear right corner a low rubble garden wall extends eastwards curving round to return across front where it includes a mounting block over a goose pen or dog kennel. The rest of the garden is enclosed by iron- railed walls and another similar wall runs alongside the path from the front gate to the front door of the farmhouse. Description: The office is a small gable-ended block. The front contains a doorway flanked by narrow lancet-like windows. The doorway is shoulder headed, the corbels supporting a low segmental arch of neatly-shaped voussoirs with a projecting and fluted keystone. The corbels and springing blocks have circular depressions. The doorway contains a replacement panelled door. The windows (including a larger one on the right side) have similarly-shaped heads and contain narrow mullioned and transomed windows. The front gable has lost its original bargeboards and scissor- braced struts. The granite ashlar chimney shaft has soffit-moulded coping and there is some dog tooth like enrichment around its base. The office still contains its original purpose-built office furniture including 2 desks. The wall attached to the office and along the northern side of the garden is rubble built with rounded coping. The mounting block steps are inside the garden. The top is a large slab of granite covering a space below which once had a door and is therefore thought to have been a goose pen or dog kennel. The rest of the garden walls are cast cast iron spear-headed railings. They are taller alongside the cobbled path ramping down along the front of the garden. The gates are in similar style. The farm office and contemporary railings are very pretty but more than that they form part of an important and well-preserved group of listed buildings which include the farmhouse (q.v.), mill (q.v.), smithy and cartshed (q.v.), barn (q.v.) and the old Old School House (q.v.). The original architects plans for the office and its furniture are in the possession of the owners. The office documents were removed to the Devon Record Office in 1986. The Perryman family have lived on the site since circa 1450.

Listing NGR: SX6785186541