Cawsand View

SX 6493 -6593 8/241

SOUTH TAWTON SOUTH ZEAL Cawsand View

GV II

2 cottages in former house. C16 with later C16 and C17 improvements. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stacks topped with C20 brick; asbestos slate to front, corrugated iron to rear, formerly thatch. Plan and development: 2 cottages facing north-east set back a little from the road. They occupy a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house. Former inner room at left (south-east) end, former hall has large axial stack backing onto passage and the former service end has a gable end stack. The left cottage occupies the hall and the inner room. The passage is shared. The right cottage occupies the service end and has a 1-room plan extension to rear. The house has been little modernised and therefore most evidence of its early development is hidden by later plaster and wallpaper. Nevertheless it undoubtedly began as a late medieval hall house probably heated by an open hearth fire. Now 2 storeys with secondary outshots to rear of hall and inner room. Exterior: irregular 4-window front of C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars. Each cottage had a late C19 doorway inserted into the front. Both contain C20 doors, the right one behind a C20 porch. The passage front doorway is open. Roof runs parallel with the street between the adjoining properties. Interior: only the passage and left cottage (former hall and inner room) were available for inspection at the time of this survey. This section at least is remarkably unmodernised and much of the C16 and C17 carpentry detail appears to survive although some is hidden. Both sides of the passage are lined with oak plank-and-muntin screens. The lower (service end side) screen is probably the earliest and may have been an original low partition. The muntins are chamfered but the stops have worn off and it includes a blocked shoulder-headed doorway. The short section of screen on the upper (hall) side is to rear of the hall stack. Its muntins are chamfered with runout stops top and bottom. In the hall the curved ends of large joists project over the screen providing evidence of a lower end jetty. The lower end might have been floored as early as the-mid C16, maybe before the hall stack was inserted. The hall fireplace is granite ashlar but its lintel is hidden. The hall crossbeam has plain soffit-chamfers; it is probably mid C17. The inner room fireplace is disused. The tight winder stair rising against the back wall at the lower end of the hall is probably mid C17. The roof over the hall is carried on some form of cruck; its shape shows but it is papered over. Other trusses are boxed into the partitions. The roofspace is inaccessible but smoke-blackened roof timbers are suspected. These 2 cottages occupy an interesting late medieval house in one of the few medieval boroughs in Devon where a high proportion of hall houses still survive.

Listing NGR: SX6524293474