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Summary

Traditional corn barn incorporating part of a domestic building of probable pre-17th century date.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses

• Old DCC SMR Ref: SS60NE/46/2

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• HOUSE (XVII - 1601 AD to 1700 AD (Pre))
• BARN (Built, XVIII to XIX - 1701 AD to 1900 AD (Between))

Full description

Unknown, ?2009, Barn About 20 Metres South West of East Leigh Farmhouse, Harberton, South Hams, Devon (Ground Photograph). SDV360761.

Photocopy of photos of barn after conversion.

Child, P., 2000, Barn at Trinity Leigh, East Leigh, Coldridge (Un-published). SDV52518.

Visited 20th November 2000. The principal section of the building is a traditional corn barn with opposed doorways and with the sawn-off beam from a horse engine house projecting from its west wall. The side walls are largely of cob, but the south wall has been rebuilt in rubble stone which appears to be 19th century in date. Roof is clad with sheeting supported on relatively modern king post and strut trusses.
The north end of the building, which is now entirely separate as the connecting door has been blocked with stonework, is part of an old domestic structure. It contains two half beams and a central beam all with neat chamfers and sharply keeled angular stops. There is a substantial fireplace centrally placed agains the northern end with stone jambs and a timber lintel which carries the same stops as the beams. This fireplace serves a cob stack rising to the ridge. The roof over this section is modern, as with the rest of the building, but there are vertical chases in the wall, particularly in the vicinity of the central beam, now filled with rubble, which appear to be where the posts of jointed crucks had previously existed. The cetral beam is offset to the chase, which would make sense if it were an insertion into an open hall. On the west side of the fireplace on the first floor there are horizontal chases in the cob which might have been from a staircase. Possibly there was an oven on the east side of the stack. There are traces of a considerable number of "magic" compass roses in the plaster of the first floor wall between this section of building and the barn. There are also "magic" burn marks on the fireplace lintel.
The quality of joinery in this building is very good and clearly it is most unlikely to have been a single cell building. It is likely to have been a lower room or a parlour of a typlical three-room and cross-passage house, subsequently floored in and converted to a kitchen. Although it is possible that the external walls of the house now form those of the barn, this does not seem likley as there are no openings which are clearly domestic in the latter, and there do seem to be some differences in structure between the two sections. The rest of the house was probably completely demolished and rebuilt as a barn with this end section being downgraded to agricultural use. The List identifies the house as 17th century, so possibly the old house was abandoned when the new one was constructed, and either used as a cottage or immediately as a farm building. Map object based on this Source.

Ordnance Survey, 2011, MasterMap (Cartographic). SDV346129.

Map object based on this Source.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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