Crossways

SX 6493 - 6593 SOUTH TAWTON SOUTH ZEAL 8/233 Crossways 4.7.85

GV II

House. Early C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, part rebuilt in the C19 and all modernised in 1985. Plastered walls, probably granite stone rubble, maybe with cob; stone rubble stacks with plastered brick stacks; asbestos slate roof, formerly thatch. Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house built along the streetfront, down the hillslope and facing north-east. Unheated inner room uphill at the right end. Hall has a large axial stack backing onto the passage. Service end room has an end stack backing onto the adjoining property that end. Although an internal inspection was not possible at the time of this survey the previous list description makes it plain that the original house was a late medieval open hall house divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. Around the mid C16 an inner room chamber was built jettying out into the upper end of the hall. Hall fireplace probably inserted in the late C16 and hall was floored over in the C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars. Passage front doorway is roughly central and now contains a C20 door under a contemporary flat-roofed hood. Roof is gable- ended. Interior: was not availabe for inspection at the time of this survey but the previous list description describes the following; a hall roof carried on a massive jointed crucks with cambered collars and smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire, oak plank-and-muntin screen at upper end of hall with curving ends of inner room joists producing internal jetty, granite ashlar hall fireplace and C17 hall crossbeam. South Zeal is special being one of the few medieval boroughs in Devon where a high number of C16 and C17 houses still survive.

Listing NGR: SX6505593578