Clannaborough Farmhouse Including Garden Walls

Clannaborough Farmhouse, including garden walls

A large and complex farmhouse of late 15th to early 16th-century origin, substantially developed through the 16th and 17th centuries, with late 19th-century modernisation. The oldest walls are plastered granite, possibly including granite ashlar work, whilst the remainder comprises granite stone rubble with large roughly-shaped quoins. Granite chimney stacks are present, with the hall stack retaining its original granite ashlar chimney shaft. The building is roofed in thatch.

The house, which faces south-east down the hillslope, appears to have begun as a three-room-and-through-passage Dartmoor longhouse, typical of the late medieval period. The inner room was terraced into the uphill slope to the south-west, whilst a shippon occupied the downhill end. Originally the house was open to the roof with an open hearth fire in the hall. Through the later 16th and 17th centuries, progressive flooring and insertion of chimney stacks enlarged the dwelling. A major early 17th-century refurbishment, possibly associated with a datestone of 1624, involved flooring the hall and rebuilding the shippon end. The rebuilt shippon was narrower than the rest of the house and contained a kitchen with an axial stack backing onto a dairy. The inner room was converted to a parlour, later extended by a narrow lobby used as a cider store between the hall and parlour. In the late 19th century, rear outshots were brought into domestic use. Evidence of a former newel stair turret, which projected to the rear at the lower end of the hall, survives. The present stairs are a late 19th-century straight flight rising from the cider store end across the site of the former newel stair.

The main house is two storeys. The irregular five-window front contains mostly 19th and 20th-century replacement casements with glazing bars, save for the oldest two windows, to the hall and first floor left end, which retain rectangular panes of leaded glass. The front passage doorway sits just right of centre and contains a solid oak frame with a lintel bearing narrow bead moulding and an old studded plank door with oak lock housing; the top ledge is inscribed "1A 1777", possibly marking when it was installed. The hall window immediately left of the doorway is set within an early 17th-century granite moulded embrasure with hoodmould, on which the initials RD are carved. Alongside to the left stands a complete early 17th-century four-light granite window with chamfered mullions, king mullion, and hood mould bearing the initials IA on the labels. The date 1767 inscribed above this window appears secondary. The similar early 17th-century three-light window directly above is inscribed on the head with "1624" flanked by the initials IC and NC (the N reversed), thought to be original. The roof is gable-ended, with the rear roof carried down over the rear outshots. A couple of rear windows are flat-faced mullion casements containing rectangular panes of old glass, possibly dating to the 19th century. The pump house behind the former dairy contains a large granite trough, and the rear doorway now serves the former kitchen, now dining room.

The interior largely reflects late 19th-century modernisation, though some joinery dates to the 18th century. Ground floor structural carpentry is mostly covered with plaster from later modernisations. In the hall are early 17th-century cross and half beams, ovolo-moulded with run-out stops. The fireplace is built of granite ashlar with a hollow-chamfered surround, possibly slightly earlier in date. The cider store contains a plain soffit-chamfered crossbeam; its partition with the parlour interrupts the early 17th-century front window. The parlour fireplace has a 20th-century grate. The 17th-century kitchen, now dining room, has a granite fireplace partly relined with 19th-century brick and includes a side oven.

The roof contains the oldest apparent fabric, particularly the section over the hall and inner room. The trusses are of cruck form, with lower sections plastered over, and feature cambered collars. The entire roof, including butt purlins, common rafters and underside of thatch, is heavily smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. The lower end early 17th-century roof is clean and carried on face-pegged jointed cruck trusses augmented by slip tenons with halved dove-tail shaped lap-jointed collars.

A strip of front garden, terraced into the hillslope to the left, is enclosed by low granite rubble coping with low segmental ashlar coping.

Clannaborough is documented as "Clanaburgh" in 1498 and "Clannaber" in 1573. Before the mid-20th-century conversion of the dairy to a kitchen, this room contained water-fed granite troughs which cooled pans of clotted cream. The farmhouse represents an important and attractive multiphase Dartmoor dwelling, little modernised since the late 19th century, and warrants careful conservation during any future alterations to avoid disturbance of 16th, 17th, or 18th-century features.