47, New Street

House at 47 New Street, Chagford

This is an early 16th-century house, formerly divided into two cottages in the 19th century but reunited and modernised around 1980. Originally built as a single house, it underwent major improvements in the late 16th and 17th centuries. The older parts of the walls are coursed blocks of dressed granite, though much has been rebuilt in granite stone rubble. The building has granite stacks with granite ashlar chimney shafts and a slate roof, which was formerly thatched.

The house follows a 3-room-and-through-passage plan, built along the street and facing east. At the left (southern) end is a small unheated inner room. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage, and the service end room has an end stack. The original house was apparently open to the roof throughout, divided by low partition screens and heated by an open hearth fire. During the later 16th and 17th centuries, the house was progressively floored, with the hall being floored last. The hall fireplace was inserted in the late 16th century. In the 19th century, the service end room was divided off as a separate cottage and given its own stack before being reunited around 1980. The site of the original stair or stairs is unknown. The building is two storeys with single-storey outshots across the rear.

The exterior has an irregular 5-window front with 20th-century horned 4-pane sashes. Most windows have timber lintels, but the two ground floor windows on the right have 19th-century segmental arches of granite voussoirs. The left-hand window blocks the 19th-century cottage doorway. The front passage doorway sits slightly right of centre and contains a plank door dating to around 1980. The roof butts those of the adjoining houses.

The interior is noteworthy for its complex structural history. The oldest part is the roof, which spans four bays and is carried on three raised true cruck trusses with slightly cambered collars. The roof is smoke-blackened from end to end, confirming that the original house was open to the roof throughout, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. The hall-inner room partition is likely one of the original low partition screens. It is an oak plank-and-muntin screen with chamfered muntins featuring worn step stops and a shoulder-headed doorway. The inner room end was probably the first section to be floored over, though the ceiling structure has been replaced at a higher level. The first floor chamber evidently jettied out into the upper end of the open hall, with its framed crosswall surviving on the first floor and filling the old truss. The ceiling of the service end and passage also appears to be a replacement. The truss at this end was once filled with large framing and wattle and daub but is now open, with the cruck feet cut away and now resting on oak corbels. The hall stack was probably inserted in the late 16th century and contains a large granite fireplace with chamfered surround and side oven. The relieving arch over the granite ashlar lintel is visible on the first floor. The hall was floored over in the early or mid 17th century using half beams at each end, both moulded with bar-step stops. The 19th-century service end fireplace was rebuilt around 1980 with a new granite lintel.

This is an interesting urban late medieval hall-house and forms part of a group of listed buildings along the western side of New Street.