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Summary

Early-mid 16th century farmhouse with late 16th/early 17th and 18th century alterations. Complex plan and development. Buildings in this farm assessed as a group in 2021 to ascertain significance.

Location

Protected Status

• Listed Building (II*) 1097238: LOWTON FARMHOUSE

Other References/Statuses

• National Buildings Record: 88448
• National Monuments Record: SX78NW48
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 898249
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX78NW/270
• Old Listed Building Ref (II*): 85025

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• FARMHOUSE (Built, XV to XVI - 1500 AD (Between) to 1575 AD (Between))

Full description

South West Heritage Trust, 1838-1848, Digitised Tithe Maps and Transcribed Apportionments (Cartographic). SDV359954.

Depicted on the Tithe Map, with a wing extending out the south.

Ordnance Survey, 1880-1899, First Edition Ordnance 25 inch map (Cartographic). SDV336179.

Some changes evident since the Tithe Map depiction; south wing appears to have been changed.

Department of Environment, 1987, Moretonhampstead, 59 (List of Blds of Arch or Historic Interest). SDV337636.

Lowton farmhouse. Farmhouse. Early-mid 16th century with late 16th/early 17th century and 18th century alterations. Rendered granite rubble walls. Thatched roof, hipped to left and gabled to right end, raised above right-hand first floor windows. Gable end stack to lower end is rendered, probably brick. Axial stack has brick shaft on granite base.
Complex plan and development. Three-room-and-through-passage plan with heated lower room to right, hall with fireplace at the unusual position at the inner end and formerly unheated inner room. Originally hall and inner room were open to the roof with central hearth in hall. Lower room always had chamber above. In the late 16th/early 17th century this room evidently had high status from the decorative plaster ceiling it was given. Also at this stage inner room and hall ceiled. Probably in 18th century the front wall was built out at the higher end forming a bay at the higher end of the hall and enlarging the inner room, possibly to incorporate a staircase. Rear outshuts behind hall passage probably circa late 19th century.
Barn extension at right angles behind lower room. Two storeys. Asymmetrical four-window front of probably 20th century two-light casements with glazing bars. Door to passage at right of centre, is 20th century plank and part glazed. To left of centre the wall is splayed forward and continues at that plane up to the left gable end. The splayed section of wall has a window at both ground and first floor level. At far left is single storey 20th century wing with gable end chimney. At the rear the house is recessed at the inner room. Outshut behind passage and hall. At the point where the barn joins the house wall is an angled brick stair projection. Good interior with some unusual features. The passage has plank and muntin screen either side, muntins are chamfered with high hollow step stops. On the hall side is a chamfered head beam. Hall ceiling has heavy central cross beam, chamfered with bar and hollow step stop. Half beam above fireplace is identical but where the bay begins has been extended. Hall fireplace has chamfered wooden lintel with traces of straight cut stop to the left.
The roof over the inner room consists of two trusses with lapped and pegged collars. The other side of the hall stack are three original trusses, very substantial with cambered collars morticed into them and threaded purlins. The first one is over the lower end of the hall and is a closed truss lightly smoke-blackened on the hall side with wattle and daub infilling and stave holes to the collar. Although the original trusses over the rest of the hall and inner room have been removed the purlins and ridge remain and are lightly smoke-blackened. The other side of the closed truss the roof timbers are clean. Over the lower end in the roof space is a moulded plaster ceiling inserted over the lower room chamber, which has had another ceiling inserted beneath it so is now completely concealed from the rest of the house. The plaster ceiling has a central geometrical design of moulded ribs, a moulded cornice and moulded edges to the plastered trusses. This ceiling is particularly unusual for a farmhouse on the Dartmoor fringes and is in a fairly good state of preservation.
The importance of this house lies not only in the survival of unusual and good quality features such as the plaster ceiling and the screens passage but also the unusual plan and development variation on the typical three-room-and-through-passage layout.

Ordnance Survey, 2018, MasterMap 2018 (Cartographic). SDV360652.

Depicted on the modern mapping.

Historic England, 2018, National Heritage List for England (National Heritage List for England). SDV360653.

See designation record for detail.

Ratcliffe, D., 2021, Lowton, Moretonhampstead, Newton Abbot, TQ13 8PN. Historic Building Record and Statement of Significance, 1-63 (Report - Assessment). SDV365454.

Cross passage plan farmhouse, probable early 16th century origins, with hall open to the roof (evidenced by smoke blackened roof timbers) and (possibly original) enclosed upper chamber at its lower, eastern, end, ornamented by a fine plaster ceiling – still surviving in the loft space.
A first floor over the hall dates roughly to the 17th century and building was later to the west (the current kitchen). By the 19th century a substantial southern wing (as either a kitchen or parlour) has been added to the western end of the building along with the surviving large barn had been added to the eastern end of the north elevation.
A lost south wing was noted through the survey of the farmhouse and associated buildings, which is comprehensive and thoroughly assesses the significance of the buildings as a group.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV8913 - Site survey at Lowton, Moretonhampstead

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