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Summary

Linhay, Circa 18th or 19th centruy. Stone rubble with corrugated asbestos sheet roof with hipped end. Facing yard with four-bay on front with rectangular stone rubble piers. The loft floors are missing.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses

• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX86SW/57/1

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• LINHAY (Early Medieval to XXI - 1066 AD to 2009 AD (Between))

Full description

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV166776.

Doe/hhr:berry pomeroy/(21/5/1985)4.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV166777.

Brown, s. /berry pomeroy: archaeological survey for presentation/(1997/8)appendix 3:105.

Department of Environment, Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV331979.

Linhay. Circa c18/19. Stone rubble with corrugated asbestos sheet roof with hipped end. Facing yard with four-bay on front with rectangular stone rubble piers. The loft floors are missing (doe).

Wapshott, E. & Webb, P., 2019, Farmhouse, Week, Berry Pomeroy, South Hams: Building Recording and Evalution (Report - Survey). SDV363337.

South West Archaeology Ltd. (SWARCH) was commissioned by a private client to undertake historic building recording and evaluation trenching as part of a programme of works associated with the re-development of the Grade II* Listed Week Farmhouse, Berry Pomeroy, South Hams, Devon. The evaluation trenching does not add much detail to the information provided by the building recording.

No structural features were identified within the trenches; though sections of low wall adjacent to one of the trenches indicates the presence of an additional former structure at the south-eastern edge of the current yard, possibly dating to the 18th-19th century farmyard. The construction cut for the terracing into the hillside was identified within Trench 01; whilst Trenches 02 and 03 only identified a modern yard surface directly overlying the natural, suggesting that any buried trace of former structures has likely been lost.

Building 3 is a partly ruinous narrow rectangular structure on a north-west to south-east orientation
which forms the south-western range of the yard. It is a one and a half storey open-fronted linhay
building, which appears to have formerly abutted B1 at its north-western end. It is of mixed shale and slate slab rubble construction with a corrugated sheeting roof, hipped to the south-east end.

The south-west elevation of the building stands to one and a half storeys and displays three very
different forms of build: the north-western end of heavy platey flat laid slatestone and shale slabs
with clay bond, and white lime re-pointing; towards the centre, massive heavy coursed shaped slabs
closely laid with little bond and battering towards the base; and a more rubble-like build towards
the south-east. This elevation was damaged at the juncture with B1 at its north-western end. It contains one open doorway, D10 and one blocked doorway, D11 into a possible garderobe structure to the south-west. Abutting the centre of this elevation is three-sided small square block structure, a possible garderobe constructed of heavy slatestone slab rubble, which has been terraced into the bank. An exterior opening (D13) is situated in its north-west wall.

The interior of this linhay has been stripped out, the floor replaced with a concrete slab and the loft
removed. There are large square sockets on the inner face of the south-west wall which are echoed on the piers, demonstrating the height of the loft. The inner face of blocked doorway D11 exhibits a thick reused chamfered timber sill. What looks like a projecting cheek to the doorway actually appears to be a set of quoins, a building line of the former end of an earlier range.

The current building is clearly of a specific regional type known as a linhay: a cart or animal house with loft above, facing into a farmyard. As with this example they are typically open-fronted, braced by either timber posts or stone-built piers. This agricultural post-medieval building, however, is built around the remains of an earlier, possibly medieval or early post-medieval range, of possible gentry
domestic character.

B3 shows several phases within its construction. The central portion of the south-west wall is of
much finer quality and suggests a possible medieval phase of construction, perhaps contemporary
with similar stonework in B1; before a substantial re-build in the late 16th century and which survives at the north-western end. Subsequent re-build and repair has been carried out in the later 19th and 20th centuries to the north-eastern piers when the structure was demolished/re-built as an agricultural building.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV8203 - Building Recording and Evalution: Farmhouse, Week, Berry Pomeroy, South Hams (Ref: 190902)

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