See important guidance on the use of this record.

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

Summary

Site of a small dovecote that was latterly used as a fowl house.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses

• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX76NE/9
• Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division: SX76NE12

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• DOVECOTE (Built, Post Medieval to XIX - 1540 AD (Between) to 1900 AD (Between))

Full description

Ordnance Survey, 1880-1899, First Edition Ordnance Survey 25 inch map (Cartographic). SDV336179.

Circular structure shown.

Copeland, G. W., 1941, Further Notes on Devon Dovecotes, 134-136, Photo (Article in Serial). SDV6787.

Baddaford. There appears to be no remains of an old house. The main building is a plain rectangular dwelling. A marshy area to the east suggests a dried up lake with a low roughly circular mound.
The dovecote stands in centre of a rectangular farmyard. It is small and circular, stonebuilt of rather rough masonrywith a grouted, tiled conical roof with a pronounced apex. Doorway on the south-east side is the full height of the wall. The wall varies from 7ft to 8ft height. The dovecote has several unusual features; there are only 19 regular nest holes, reached by hand. They originally had stone cills and lintels but ten have been renewed in wood; at ground level there are seven large rectangular holes to accommodate farmyard fowls; there are five roughly rectangular glazed openings in the roof, halfway between apex and eaves.
The dovecote is currently in use as a fowl house but is under threat of demolition.

Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division, 1960, SX76NE12 (Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Card). SDV158777.

Site visit 27th May 1960. The dovecote is now roofless and the walls partly demolished, with a maximum height of 2.0m. The walls of rubble include some modern brick. The openings at ground level are visible and the remains of the sixteen nesting boxes with wooden sills can be traced. The date of the structure is uncertain but there is nothing to suggest that it is not contemporary with the farmhouse and other farm buildings which appear to be a 'model farm' of early 19th century date.

Wills, A., 2008, Devon's dovecotes, an undergraduate investigation, Appendix 1A, Photo (Undergraduate Dissertation). SDV366424.

Copeland (1941, 136) recorded and photographed the dovecote in 1941. Built of stone rubble it was only 2m high at the eaves and had been altered for use as a fowl house. It was described as not contemporary with the more modern farm buildings.
By the early 1960s it was a pile of rubble and all that remains now is a pile of grassed over debris.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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