Church House

SX 69 SE SOUTH TAWTON SOUTH TAWTON

4/225 Church House 22.2.67 GV II*

Church house, still used as parish rooms. Late C15 - early C16, much altered in the mid C16. Large blocks of coursed granite ashlar. Patched here and there with granite stone rubble; granite stacks with granite ashlar chimneyshafts; thatch roof. Plan and development: the building is built down a gentle hillslope and faces south-east backing onto and terraced into the churchyard. The mid C16 church house had a 3-room plan but now the centre and left (south-western) room have been knocked together. Left end gable-end stack and an axial stack between the other rooms serves back-to-back fireplaces. Lobby entrance right of centre onto the side of the stack. External first floor access. A blocked disturbance in the left end wall behind the stack might represent the site of a former internal stair there. Originally the house was open to the roof, heated by an open hearth fire and any internal partitions were low screens. It was floored in the mid C16 when the fireplaces were inserted and is therefore now 2 storeys. Exterior: irregular 3-window front of C20 casements containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. Those on the ground floor occupy C16 embrasures with chamfered granite reveals, the centre one with the headpiece of a 2-light window with trefoil- headed lights. The main front doorway is right of centre and is probably original; a granite'2-centred arch with chamfered surround and contains an ancient studded oak plank door. Secondary ground floor doorway containing a C20 door left of centre. The main front doorway is flanked by the double flight of external lateral granite steps rising to the main first floor doorway; a granite Tudor arch containing a C20 door. To right a secondary first floor doorway. The steps have plain C19 iron rails. In fact the ground floor doorways also have steps from the road; these set with upended cobbles with granite kerbs. The roof is gable-ended. The right (north-eastern) gable end contains a good C16 first floor window; square-headed 3- light granite-mullioned window with Perpendicular tracery and a hoodmould. Interior is largely mid C16. Of the 3 fireplaces only the one for the centre room is exposed; it is granite ashlar with a plain soffit-chamfered oak lintel. The left end one, though blocked, is larger than the others. All ground floor crossbeams are of large scantling with plain soffit chamfers. There is no sign of the partition between centre and left rooms although Copeland reports an oak plank- and-muntin screen containing a shoulder-headed doorway. First floor is open to the roof. The roof structure is now interrupted by the axial stack but was formerly a continuous 5-bay roof true cruck trusses. The whole of this roof structure is smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire. Source: G W Copeland. Devonshire Church Houses, Part 1. Trans. Devon. Assoc. 92 (1960), p.130.

Listing NGR: SX6528994451