Vete Mill Farmhouse Including Garden Walls To South

SX 79 SW DREWSTEIGNTON

5/70 Vete Mill farmhouse including garden walls to south

GV II

Farmhouse. C17, probably earlier in parts, renovated circa 1980. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stacks all topped with C20 brick; thatch roof. Plan and development: 4-room-and-through-passage plan house built down the hillslope and faces south. At the uphill left (west) end the inner room has a gable-end stack. The hall has a large axial stack backing onto the passage. C19 stair between hall and inner room. Of the 2 rooms on the lower side of the passage (now divided off as a self-contained cottage) the first room was the kitchen with an axial stack backing onto the second end room. This has been thoroughly renovated in the C20. It seems likely that this was formerly a shippon or agricultural store. Nothing shows in the house earlier than the C17. Nevertheless it could easily be interpreted from the plan as a late medieval open hall house and probably that of a Dartmoor longhouse. Nevertheless other longhouses in the area appear to be complete mid C17 rebuilds. Secondary single storey woodshed adjoining at right angles projecting forward and overlapping the lower left end. C20 kitchen outshot to rear of hall. 2 storeys throughout. Exterior: irregular 6-window front of C20 casements with glazing bars including a French window to the inner room. The slope is emphasized because the hall and inner room section is taller and the windows here are larger. The roof steps down from left to right. The front passage doorway is right of centre. It contains a late C19 door behind a contemporary gabled and slate-roofed porch with shaped bargeboards. The cottage doorway alongside to right. Roof is gable-ended to left and half-hipped to right. A blocked first floor opening in the right end wall might have been a hayloft loading hatch. However the C20 conversion of this end has hidden or removed any evidence for the use of this end as a shippon. Interior: despite the layout all the features exposed are C17 in date. In the passage the back of the stack includes a timber joist ledge. The fireplace itself is large, built of granite rubble with a soffit-chamfered oak lintel. The ceiling here is tall and the first floor is carried on a soffit-chamfered and scroll- stoppped crossbeam. Similar crossbeam in the inner room and the fireplace here was inserted or rebuilt in the C19. The roof is inaccessible although the bases of straight principals of large scantling show suggesting the survival of tne C17 A- frame truss roof. The lower end cottage was not available for inspection at the time of this survey. Nevertheless a soffit-chamfered crossbeam and a large fireplace with oak lintel and side oven could be seen in the kitchen. The lower roof over this section may be older than the rest.

Listing NGR: SX7357691621