Meavy House

Meavy House is a house, originally a vicarage, dating from the 17th century, with significant alterations and extensions in the 18th and 19th centuries. The house is constructed of stucco and rendered rubble walls with a gable-ended slate roof. It has three rendered chimney stacks, one at each gable end of the main part of the house, and a lateral stack at the rear.

Historical records from 1613 indicate the original house included a hall, parlour with a chamber above, and two ground floor rooms with two chambers above, arranged around a courtyard. Associated buildings included a malthouse or beerhouse, a dovehouse, a stable, a small gatehouse, and a barn. A 1680 record lists a hall, parlour, kitchen, dairy, buttery, a gallery, and four chambers above. The house’s size appears consistent by 1727, although the gatehouse is no longer mentioned. The original hall was unceiled, but subsequent records do not specify the location of the chambers, making it difficult to determine when the hall was floored over. The hall was heated by a rear lateral stack, while the lower room was likely unheated.

In the late 18th century, the house was extended by one room to the right-hand end and a wing was added behind this extension in the late 18th or early 19th century. The front elevation was likely re-faced at this time, and further extensions were added to the right-hand end around the mid-19th and early 20th centuries.

The front of the house has an asymmetrical five-window arrangement dating from the early 19th century, featuring 16 and 12 pane hornless sash windows on the first floor. The ground floor has a 16-pane sash to the left, a four-light 19th-century casement with small panes in the centre, and a late 19th-century four-pane sash to the right. An early 19th-century doorcase with pilasters and a moulded cornice frames a 19th-century four-panel door. The simply moulded eaves cornice is probably 18th century. A mid-19th-century extension, with a 20th-century addition projecting from the right-hand end, is set back slightly from the right gable.

Inside, an early 19th-century open string stick baluster staircase was inserted into what was formerly an inner room.