Church Stile Cottage

CHAGFORD HIGH STREET, (south side), SX 7087 Chagford 6/117 Church Stile Cottage 20.2.52

• II

Cottage, once part of a larger house. C16 core, much altered in late C17 probably when original house divided into cottages. Plastered granite with cob and timber framing above first floor level in rear block; granite stack with granite ashlar chimney shaft; thatch roof. Plan and development: 1-room wide, 2-room deep plan cottage set back a little and facing onto High Street to the north-east. The larger front room parlour has an axial stack on the right (north-west) side backing onto a wide passage leading to a row of cottages behind. The chamber over the passage belongs to this cottage. The present stairs are early C20 but there is a disused newel stair turret which originally projected to rear of the main room behind the stack. Small rear service room is secondary and unheated. It seems most likely that the main front room was originally the hall of a C16 3-room-and-through-passage plan house built along the street. In the late C17 the house was subdivided into 3 cottages. The inner room to left was later redeveloped as part of the site of the Globe Inn (q.v.), the passage was thrown open to give access to more cottages built in the rear of the property and the service end room was developed as Whiddons Coffee Shop (q.v.). Cottage is 2 storeys. Exterior: irregular 2-window front of casements of various sizes and different dates, all containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The oldest is the chamber window over the passage which is probably late C17 and contains tiny panes of ancient glass. Cottage doorway to right of main room has a plain oak frame and contains an old (possibly late C17) studded plank door hung on strap hinges with fleur-de-lys finials. It lies behind a stone rubble porch with gabled slate-roofed porch which has stone benches each side. This too could be as old as the late C17. The roof runs across the front abutting the adjoining properties. The roof of the rear block is at right angles and runs continuously with that of the cottage behind. Interior: the oldest feature is the large C16 granite ashlar fireplace with a hollow-chamfered surround. It includes a side oven. The back of the fireplace is exposed in the passage; granite ashlar with a chamfered plinth and cornice and also, near the front, a large moulded corbel of unknown function. The carpentry detail is all late C17. The main room has a soffit-chamfered crossbeam. The 3-bay roof above is inaccessible but the scantling of the feet of the A-frame trusses suggest that the roof too is late C17.

Listing NGR: SX7009287477