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Summary

Seventeenth century farmhouse.

Location

Protected Status

• Listed Building (II*) 1106860: HONITON BARTON

Other References/Statuses

• Old Listed Building Ref (II*)

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• FARMHOUSE (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1750 AD)

Full description

Department of Environment, 1986, South Molton (List of Blds of Arch or Historic Interest). SDV321005.

Honiton Barton.
Dated 1676 over doorway. E-shaped house with L-wing to rear which is a C17 dairy range. 2 storeys, stone rubble. Slate roof. 5 stone mullioned and wooden casement windows with some leaded lights. 2-storeyed porch with date 1676 and the initials APC. Interior has chamfered beams, C17 panelling, old studded doors, C17 dog leg staircase with turned balusters and bread oven. There may be a C17 decorated plaster ceiling under false ceilings to 2 bedrooms on the first floor. (See W G Hoskins "Devon Farmhouses".) Other details: LBS Number 96883.

Adams, A., 2010, Sgraffito - Decorated and Painted Plaster on Devon Fireplaces, 6 (Report - non-specific). SDV354436.

Sgraffito-decorated fireplace.

Adams, A., 2015, Sgraffito-Decorated and Painted Plaster on Devon Fireplaces, 170, 175, 177, 179-180; Fig 7.24, 7.25 (Article in Monograph). SDV365384.

Bricks were depicted on the back of the chamber fireplace. Its narrow "ashlar pointing" of brick-sized rectangles was later repaired with a much thicker plaster, also decorated with wide "ashlar pointing" of larger rectangles.
Painted decoration is less common than sgraffito. Some sgraffito designs are overpainted. The three most elaborate and unusual examples are at Honiton Barton whre the exterior wall face of one fireplace was treated with a trompe l’oeil painted architectural scheme, apparently with pilasters, of which one capital with ‘egg-and-dart’ and a double flower remain. A second ground-floor room, probably a parlour, preserves decoration on the jamb only; this consists of flowers in a vase and overlies a preceding scheme of thin ‘ashlar pointing’. Although the centre of the design has been destroyed, sufficient survives to allow a conjectural restoration of the entire pattern. The decoration of the chamber above it is more extensively preserved; it covers part of the back and both jambs, and extends onto the surrounding wall faces. This remarkable piece shows fruiting vines with tendrils, with back-to-back parrot-like birds’ heads developing from the roots – one on the right jamb, the other on the left wall face – both of the left-facing bird. (This is one of only two known bird depictions, the other being at Middle Moor, Sowton (MDV10082).) These three works belong to or post-date a major refurbishment of the house in 1676. The fact that painted ornament rather than sgraffito was employed in all three fireplaces here may indicate that the fashion for sgraffito was waning by the 1670s.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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