Ardonay Cottage And Barn Adjoining West

Ardonay Cottage and a barn adjoining it to the west represent an early 16th-century house, with significant alterations in the later 16th and 17th centuries, and a portion rebuilt as a barn in the late 18th or early 19th century. The house is primarily constructed from plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with some areas rebuilt entirely in stone rubble. It features stone rubble stacks topped with 19th-century brick and a thatch roof, replaced with corrugated iron over the barn section.

Originally a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south, the house likely started as a late medieval hall house open from end to end, initially heated by an open hearth fire. A hall fireplace was inserted in the mid to late 16th century, and the house was progressively floored over between the mid 16th and mid 17th centuries. The service end room was later converted into a barn in the late 18th or early 19th century, and was more recently used as an undertakers' workshop. The inner room fireplace may have been added as late as the 18th/19th century. Secondary outshots are attached to the rear. The house is two stories high, while the barn is open to the roof.

The house's exterior presents an irregular 3-window front with 19th and 20th-century casement windows containing glazing bars. A 19th-century plank door is located within a plain frame at the left end of the house section, leading from the passage. The barn portion on the left has two 19th-century plank doors, with a larger double door at the left end. The roof aligns continuously with the adjoining properties to both the right and left.

Inside, an early 16th-century oak shoulder-headed doorframe remains in situ from the passage to the hall, along with a headbeam in the passage rear doorway. The hall features a large granite ashlar fireplace with a soffit-chamfered and step-stopped oak lintel; the side oven was inserted or relined in the 19th century. A chamfered crossbeam with step stops and a lower bench are also visible on a plank-and-muntin screen. The inner room shows no significant carpentry detail, and the fireplace here has a 19th-century grate. A lower portion of a true cruck truss is visible on the lower side of the passage, and another is incorporated into the framed crosswall between the hall and the upper room. The roofspace is inaccessible, but it is suspected to contain smoke-blackened timbers and thatch. The barn has a late 18th- or early 19th-century roof with A-frame trusses, pegged and spiked lap-jointed collars. Ardonay Cottage is one of the oldest houses in Drewsteignton village and contributes to a group of attractive listed buildings.