Middle Drewston Farmhouse Including Garden Walls To The Front

SX 78 NW CHAGFORD

4/56 Middle Drewston Farmhouse - including garden walls to the front

• II

Farmhouse. Probably C16 origins but virtually rebuilt in C17 and early C18. C19 extension and shippon rebuilt circa 1960. Mostly plastered granite stone rubble with large dressed quoins; granite stacks with granite ashlar chimney shafts; thatch roof, corrugated asbestos to shippon. Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south-south-west, say south. It is built down a very gentle slope. The uphill end has an inner room parlour with a projecting end stack. The hall has a large axial stack backing onto the passage. The shippon at the left end was reduced in height circa 1960 and converted to the present kitchen. The C17 stair turret projecting to rear of the hall was enlarged to include a service room and new stairs in the C19. The house probably originated as an open hall house but was so extensively rebuilt in the C17 and early C18 that there is no apparent evidence of any C16 fabric. It is now 2 storeys with the shippon reduced to one storey. Exterior: irregular 3-window front with 2 extra windows to the shippon, all C20 casements some with glazing bars. Roughly central front passage doorway contains C20 panelled door and a monopitch slate hood. Roof is gable-ended. The parlour stack has weathered offsets and is propped by a C20 buttress. The left end wall (to the former shippon) retains a central slit window and a blocked drain hole. Interior: most of the structural detail appears to be mid and late C17. Hall has a large granite fireplace with an unchamfered oak lintel and a side oven. The crossbeam here is soffit-chamfered with runout stops. (Maybe the hall was floored as late as the early C18). Good mid C17 parlour has an ovolo-moulded and scroll-stopped crossbeam with exposed soffit-chamfered and scroll-stopped joists. Parlour fireplace is blocked. The C17 stair was replaced in the C19 but the double doorway off the top landing is C17. The doorframes throughout the house, including the rear passage doorframe, are solid oak but have no finished surround. Some C18 joinery. Roof not inspected but the bases of straight principals can be seen on the first floor and the A-frame trusses are believed to be C17. Front garden is enclosed by tall granite rubble boundary walls and the gateway contains a C20 wrought iron gate.

Listing NGR: SX7257987384