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Summary

An L- shaped house with a 13th century three room and cross passage plan. A rear block was built in the 15th century and there were further adaptations and enlargements in the mid to late 16th century.

Location

Protected Status

• Listed Building (II*) 1171316: TOWNSEND FARM HOUSE

Other References/Statuses

• Old DCC SMR Ref: ST20SW/7
• Old Listed Building Ref (II*): 88248

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• HOUSE (Unknown date)
• FARMHOUSE (XIII to XVI - 1250 AD to 1600 AD) + Sci.Date

Full description

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV110504.

Alcock, n. W. /tda/104(1972)39 fig.2/devonshire farmhouses, part 4: some medieval houses in east and north devon.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV110505.

Alcock, n. W. , + laithwaite, m. /med. Arch. /17(1973)104-105, photo, plan.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV110506.

Des=worksheet(pearce, n. Quoting alcock, n. W. ).

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV110507.

Doe/hhr:axminster rd/(1960)25.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV110508.

Alcock, n. W. /cruck construction(cba res rep 42)/(1981)112.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV110509.

Osa=st20sw8.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV110510.

Doe/hhr:62:part of east devon(19/10/1984)182.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV110511.

Med. Arch. /17(1973)104.

Untitled Source (Aerial Photograph). SDV110512.

Aph=dap/kg 6,6a/(21/3/1988).

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV110513.

Des=child, p.(dcc)/(14/10/2002)/email in pf.

Alcock, N. W. + Laithwaite, M., Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV288516.

Originally a three-room single storey house divided by low partition, and heated by an open hearth in the hall. Built mainly in local chert, and thatched. House since 15th century, of high quality. Hall fireplace and ceiling are 16th century. Kitchen, pantry, and two-storey porches at each end of the cross-passage are 17th century. Details of roofing provided in text (alcock + laithwaite).

Department of Environment, Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV325983.

Roughcast walls with hipped thatch roof. Brick and stone stacks. Two storeys. Porch has wide, roughly four-centred arched opening. Inner doorway has old oak frame.17th century (doe).

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV33774.

Dendrochronology date of 1259 was obtained from timber from townsend farmhouse in 2002 making it probably devon's oldest house (child).

Alcock, N. W., Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV57461.

Townsend farmhouse. Has early halved joints on some of the trusses, similar to those found at pilliven, witheridge. These joints are of a more advanced form than those at pilliven and are only used on the end trusses of the hall, with an arch-braced truss using mortice-and-tenon joints for the centre truss. The construction is of jointed truss type and the apex is of the fully developed devon form, probably around 1400. The inner lining of the roof is of wattling (alcock).

Griffith, F. M., Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV8774.

Nb: townsend farmhouse is south of site shown as 'townsend farm' on os 6" 1963. Above ngr correct (fmg).

Taylor, D., 1993, Prestonbury Castle (Worksheet). SDV1142.

Worksheet gives breakdown of development of house (worksheet).

Fisher, J., 1999, East Devon Conservation Area Appraisals: Stockland, 6, 11 (Report - non-specific). SDV347085.

Townsend, with chert walls under thatch, is typical of the 15th to 17th century farmhouses in and around the village. There were originally three rooms and a cross-passage, a 17th century rear kitchen and store, two-storey front and rear porches, and four jointed cruck trusses with smoke-blackening indicating a former open hall. The moulded beams and windows were inserted later, during the 17th century. Other details: Maps, photograph.

Devon and Somerset County Councils, 2000-2002, Historic Farmsteads Database, BH179H (Machine readable data file). SDV349681.

An L- shaped house with a 13th century three room and cross passage plan. A rear block was built in the 15th century and there were further adaptations and enlargements in the mid to late 16th century. It has a three- window front with a 17th century single storey porch over the front doorway. Chert; rubble stone walls. Rendered. Thatch roof. House, no longer a farmhouse.

Thorp, J., 2002, Townsend Farm, BH179001 (Ground Photograph). SDV352595.

Thorp, J., 2002, Townsend Farm, BH179007, BH179021-BH179022 (Un-published). SDV352596.

2003, Tree ring date lists 2003 (Article in Serial). SDV361608.

Tree ring data from Townsend (ST 246 047) records felling date ranges of 1258-63; 1239-59 (main range of the house). Also, a felling date range of 1490-1524 (rear range).

Ordnance Survey, 2013, MasterMap (Cartographic). SDV350786.

English Heritage, 2013, National Heritage List for England (National Heritage List for England). SDV350785.

Townsend Farm House.

Farm house. Circa early 16th century house with circa 17th century or earlier parlour wing. Roughcast stone rubble. Thatched roof with hipped and gabled ends. Two storeys. Three window range. Ground and first floor left hand are four-light ovolo moulded stone mullion windows. The remainder are later two and three-light casements with glazing bars. To right of centre heavy wooden doorframe with cambered head and plank door. Stone porch with moulded roughly four-centred arch and thatched roof. Stone rubble ridge stack off centre and brick stack at north end. Parlour wing at rear with gable-ended thatched roof. Rear porch to cross passage, stone with timber-framed storey above, and the roof thatch swept over. Interior: smoke-blacked roof. Jointed cruck trusses with arched braces to collars. Cruck joints are face-pegged. Through passage with section of plank and muntin screen with depressed arch doorway to hall. Inserted floor in former open-hall with intersecting deeply chamfered ceiling beams and fireplace with chamfered wooden bressumer. Tudor-arched doorways on first floor. Parlour wing at rear may be 16th century because it is said to have smoke-blackened roof.

Alcock, N., 2015, The Development of the Vernacular House in South-West England, 1500-1700, 10, 14; Fig 1.1; Plates I-II (Article in Monograph). SDV365373.

Townsend is characteristic of the more than 2000 medieval houses in Devon, distinctive only in that tree-ring dating on two of its roof trusses reveals it as the earliest domestic building yet identified in the county, constructed with timber felled in about 1260; other houses have been dated either by dendrochronology or typology to the late 13th-, the 14th- and especially the 15th- centuries. Townsend’s appearance, again typically, conceals this age, the windows and the porch suggesting only that it might be 16th-century.
However, the roof reveals intense soot-blackening from the open hearth. It has also preserved the lowest layers of the medieval thatch, together with the brushwood “fleaking” (the direct support for the thatch). A roof truss shows a pair of notched-lap halvings, now empty and themselves soot-blackened. These halvings are the result of a reconstruction, probably circa 1400, in which the central truss of the hall was replaced. At the same time, the trusses were infilled with wattle-and-daub, so the roof shows another characteristic feature: this infill is sooted on the hall side, but clean on the other side, although the roof itself in the further bay is sooted. As well as indicating the stages in the medieval development of the house, this evidence also reflects the gradual increase in its comfort, through the exclusion of smoke from the parlour chamber.
In plan, Townsend has the characteristic layout of the medieval Devon house: three rooms in line, with a cross-passage; again, typically, it has a rear kitchen added circa 1500. The central room was always the open hall, and the room beyond the passage was for service.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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