See important guidance on the use of this record.

If you have any comments or new information about this record, please email us.

Summary

No longer extant. Farmhouse at Lower Beara was demolished during the 1950s. It was described as rather long with irregular elevation and thick stuccoed walls. Was located on the northern side of the road; is now built over by modern farm buildings. Smoking chamber noted by Waterhouse.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses

• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX76SW/10

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• FARMHOUSE (XVIII to XIX - 1750 AD? to 1840 AD)

Full description

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV163538.

Copeland, g. W. /tda/86(1954)325-6/old houses visited in 1953 by the plymouth branch.

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV163539.

Des=worksheet/parish file. Lower beara, an old farmhouse of rather long and irregular elevation and thick stuccoed walls. A large two-stage gabled porch with a plain segmental-headed outer granite doorway. Light wooden side benches and a curious little window cut from a single piece of oak 622mm by 267mm, with a kind of ogee head in a splayed opening in the east side wall. The passage from the porch, which does not go through the house, is divided from the kitchen on the left by a plain plank-screen, reinforced by oak posts, which also support the wall-plate and which rest on a low wall which serves as a long shelf in the passage. The kitchen is entered through a round-headed chamfered oak doorway and has a wide open fireplace in its east wall. Within the fireplace is a curious structure on the left hand side, now divided from the existing fireplace by a modern thin brick wall, a comparatively well-finished pointed arch of coarse masonry, 1.829m from hearth level, admits to a square chamber with a domical stone roof in whose apex is an aperture which probably communicates with the adjoining chimney flue. In the wall opposite the doorway are what may be traces of a small splayed slit, of which nothing is visible externally. In the floor at 0.914m above hearth level, is a stone-lined circular pit, now reduced to a semi-circle by the brick wall, and nearly full of debris. May be a rare type of built-in ash house, though it bears some resemblance, except for the circular pit, to small chambers adjacent to fireplaces alleged to have been used as curing ovens. Their are two semi-circular staircases, one from the kitchen, with wood-covered stone steps, and another further west, both contained in outer projections; the former with a pent and the latter with a gabled roof.(copeland). The building was demolished during the 1950s (worksheet).

Robinson, R., 1977-1979, South Brent Parish Checklist Worksheets, Pages 555-6 of 821 (Worksheet). SDV340722.

Waterhouse, R., 1998, Smoking Chambers in Devon, Part 2, 8 (Article in Serial). SDV348115.

Lower Beara, South Brent (SX 710 614). Now demolished, photographs in the Totnes Museum show the smoking chamber to have been a possible type 3, with large high chamber and corbelled roof and pointed door head. 16th century arched door frame from cross passage also on display.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.