| Summary: | Clyst William Barton Farmhouse early 16C with major later 16C, 17C and early 18C improvements, modernised and enlarged in 1861 according to the date plaque. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; cob, stone rubble and brick stacks topped with 19C and 20C brick; thatch roof. Plan and development: L plan farmhouse. The main block faces south-west and has a 4-room-and-through-passage plan. The small unheated left (north-west) end room is now used as the kitchen but was formerly a service room, probably a dairy or buttery. Next to it is the inner room, the former kitchen, with projecting front lateral cob stack. (In fact the left end of the house is built out flush with the front of the stack.) The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage. At the right (south-east) end is a lower end parlour with an end stack. A second parlour was added in 1861 projecting forward in front of the old parlour; it has an outer lateral stack. This is a multi-phase farmhouse. Part of the original roof survives over the passage and lower end parlour and it indicates that the original house was open to the roof for the most part, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. The inner room end may have been floored from the beginning but it has been rebuilt since. The hall chimneystack was inserted in the mid - late 16C and the lower end was probably floored over at the same time. The hall was floored over in the mid 17C. Also the inner room end was rebuilt and enlarged to provide kitchen and dairy/buttery in the mid 17C and the lower end was probably converted to a parlour at the same time. There is some evidence of modernisation in the early 18C and more modernisation associated with the building of the 1861 parlour crosswing. The farmhouse is 2 storeys. Exterior: irregular 2:1 - window front. The main block has 20C casements without glazing bars and the front end of the crosswing has a first floor 19C 6-pane sash (there are more on the side) over a 19C French window with a hood on shaped brackets. The passage front doorway is alongside the crosswing and it contains a 19C 6-panel door behind a 20C gabled porch. The main roof is hipped each end and the crosswing roof is also hipped. The 1861 date plaque is set in the crosswing chimneyshaft. Interior: the crosswing has no features earlier than 1861. The lower end parlour was refurbished at the same time; the beams are boxed in and the fireplace has a 19C chimneypiece. However a cupboard here is probably 18C; it has fielded panel doors on H-hinges. The hall fireplace has Beerstone ashlar panelled cheeks and an oak lintel with its soffit hacked back a little. The crossbeam here and the former kitchen axial beam both have deep chamfers with scroll stops. The kitchen fireplace has been relined with 19C brick and has a plain oak lintel. The former dairy/buttery has 2 chamfered axial beams. The original roof survives over the passage and lower end parlour. It is carried on side-pegged jointed crucks. The whole structure including the purlins, common rafters and underside of the original thatch is smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire. The rest of the main block roof is carried on 18C A-frame trusses with pegged and spiked lap-jointed collars and X-apexes. These trusses also have carpenter's assembly marks. There are 3 farmhouses close to one another here, this one, Middle Clyst William farmhouse (q.v) and Little Clyst William farmhouse (q.v), and all are well-preserved
and have late medieval origins. |
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