Lower Uppacott Farmhouse

Lower Uppacott Farmhouse

A house, formerly a longhouse, dating from the late medieval period with later additions. The rear wing was probably added in the 18th century. The building is constructed of granite rubble with a thatched roof, the main range having a half-hipped thatch; lean-tos at the rear are covered with real slates.

The main range carries an off-centre granite ashlar chimneystack on the ridge, positioned to the left, with thatch weatherings and a tapered top; this heated the former hall. A granite stack with offsets, weatherings and a plain top projects from the gable-wall of the wing, constructed with quoins and shaft of roughly squared granite blocks. A 20th-century stone stack stands at the rear of the shippon.

The house follows a 3-room and through-passage plan with a hall stack backing onto the passage; a former shippon occupies the right side. The building is 2 storeys, with single-storey lean-tos. The front elevation has 3 windows, the two righthand windows in the former shippon; at the left-hand end the thatch dips down to cover the upper storey completely. All windows have 19th or 20th-century small-paned wood casements. A doorway to the passage features a pent-roofed stone porch with an old plank door; the roof now forms a catslide, though a 1950 photograph shows a window above it. To the right of the porch there was formerly a separate doorway to the shippon, now marked only by a straight joint; a window has replaced it. To the right of this window is a blocked ventilation slit. A stone lean-to with catslide roof stands to the right again; this has been altered since 1950. In the lower right-hand gable-wall at ground-storey level are 3 ventilation slits, now glazed.

The interior has a stone-flagged floor to the former through-passage; the partition with the former shippon has been removed. The shippon is now a kitchen, though it remained in use for cattle, with concrete feeding troughs, until the mid-20th century. Floor-beams in the loft above have mostly been renewed, though one heavy rough beam remains. The back of the hall stack facing the through-passage is without architectural features but contains some massive roughly-dressed granite blocks. Against it is a chamfered half-beam, cut into to insert the slightly projecting back of the hall oven.

The hall itself has a stone-flagged floor. The fireplace has plain granite jambs and a chamfered wood lintel that appears to be re-used, as the chamfer overruns the jambs. To the right-hand side is an oven with a stone-framed opening having a slightly curved head. At the back of the fireplace, on the left-hand side, is a flat-headed recess.

The upper floor has no beams, only chamfered joists with step-stops running from front to back wall. At the upper end, the joists over the inner room project into the hall as a jetty, demonstrating that the hall was originally open to the roof. The joists are plain on the inner-room side but chamfered with run-out stops and curved ends on the hall side; the partition below is 20th-century, though the original had already been replaced before that.

In the room over the hall, the wall dividing it from the room over the inner room contains a low plank-and-muntin partition with chamfered studs having run-out stops; the top rail appears to have been replaced. This partition must originally have stood on the end of the jetty so as to be visible from the hall. It is now visible only at the east end of the wall, though a 1972 report suggests it formerly extended right across.

The roof-truss over the hall has very slightly curved feet, with through purlins and ridge, though there is no sign of a collar. The truss, common rafters and underside of the thatch are smoke-blackened. According to the house owner, the blackening continues over the inner room, suggesting that this too was originally single-storeyed. The roof trusses over the shippon are probably 18th or early 19th century, featuring threaded purlins and collars pegged to the faces of the principal rafters. A tie-beam truss is buried in the back of the hall stack.

The rear wing has a gable fireplace with a plain granite lintel and monolithic granite jambs. An upper-floor beam is chamfered with an unusually deep and angled scroll-stop, similar to one at Dunstone Manor.