| Summary: | West Forde farmhouse is an unusually long and narrow building: if the barn is included with the house, the length of the whole building is approximately 44 metres. Because of this great length and the extent of alterations to the façades and interior features, it is difficult to identify the nucleus of the house.
The house is presumed to have originated as a typical medieval vernacular house, one room deep, with a cross passage and three main rooms: a service room below the cross passage, a hall at the centre of the building (probably lit by an open fire) and an inner room or parlour at the end of the hall. Such houses usually began as single-storey dwellings, with all the rooms open to the roof. Such houses were often gradually floored in during the 16th and 17th centuries.
As there is evidence of smoke blackened timbers in the roof at West Forde there can be little doubt that the house did originally have an open hall and that the typical pattern of development outlined above has occurred here. The great length of the present house seems to have resulted from the accretion of additional structures on the same alignment as the main house, and the continuation of this pattern through successive phases of development over centuries. |
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