Description

SX 79 SW DREWSTEIGNTON DREWSTEIGNTON

5/92 Lady House

22.2.67
II
GV

House, once including a bakery and shop. Early or mid C16 (the earliest document is
lease of 1542), with major later C16 and C17 improvements, C18 extension, some late
C19 modernisation and renovated circa 1970. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings;
stone rubble stacks topped with brick; thatch roof.
Plan and devlopment: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south. Unheated
inner room at the left (west) end. Hall has a large axial stack backing onto the
site of the former passage. The service end room has a projecting front lateral
stack. The roofspace is inaccessible and therefore the early development of the
house cannot be determined with certainty. Nevertheless it seems likely that the
original house was open to the roof from end to end, divided by low partition
screens and heated by an open hearth fire. The hall fireplace was probably inserted
in the late C16, the service end room fireplace is later and the house was
progressively floored from the mid C16 - mid C17. There is evidence that the first
inner room chamber jettied into the upper end of the hall but, in the mid C17, when
the hall was floored over, the first floor hall-inner room partition was moved back
over the ground floor partition. Unheated 1-room plan extension added in C18 at
right angles to rear of the inner room, maybe for agricultural or storage purposes.
By the late C19 there was a bakery here and a massive bread oven added (or enlarged)
in hall fireplace. At this time the inner room was used as the shop. Lower passage
partition removed in C20. House and extension are 2 storeys.
Exterior: irregular 3-window front of C20 casements with glazing bars. The right
end ground floor window has been inserted partly through the service end room stack.
A fourth ground floor window, the inner one to the inner room, is blocking the
bakery shop doorway. Passage front doorway has a C20 plank door. The large oven
housing projects forward to left of the doorway. The roof is gable-ended to left
and runs continuously with that of No.1 Church Gate Cottages (q.v) to left.
Interior: no carpentry shows in the service end room. The fireplace here is
granite with a chamfered lintel but is reduced in width by the front window.
Granite ashlar back to the hall fireplace and the oak doorframe from the passage,
though partly boxed in, appears to be C17 with an ovolo-moulded surround. In the
hall the fireplace is built of granite ashlar with a soffit-chamfered and runout-
stopped oak lintel under a granite relieving arch. On the right side is a massive
brick bread oven over a proving oven. Stone rubble crosswall at the upper end of
the hall may be an original low partition since it contains an early-mid C16 oak
shoulder-headed doorframe. Above the crosswall the former jetty joists have been
sawn off flush with the crosswall, all that is except the one (with curved end) left
supporting the mid C17 soffit-chamfered and scroll-stepped axial beam flooring over
the hall. Little of the roof is exposed and the roofspace is inaccessible. Only
part of the truss over the upper end of the passage can be seen and it appears to be
a true cruck truss and, alongside the passage rear doorway, the foot of the cruck is
exposed descending to floor level. The rear block has a roughly-chamfered crossbeam
of enormous scantling and the 2-bay roof is carried on an A-frame truss, with a
pegged and spiked lap-jointed collar.
Lady House is one of the (if not the) earliest surviving houses in the village.
Moreover it forms part of an attractive group of listed buildings east of the
churchyard. The present owner has researched the documentary history of the
property and has a list of the leaseholders from its pre- C20 owner, the church.
Also he has a photograph from circa 1900 showing the house with the baker's shop.

Listing NGR: SX7370090873

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26399973

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)