Description

SX 68 NE GIDLEIGH CHAPPLE

3/183 West Chapple Farmhouse
-
3.12.76
GV II*

House, former Dartmoor longhouse. Early C16 with later C16 and C17 improvements,
renovated circa 1975. Massive blocks of roughly coursed ashlar on massive boulder
footings with a great deal of granite stone rubble patching; granite stacks with
granite ashlar chimneyshafts; thatch roof.
Plan and development: T-shaped building. The original part is the main block. This
is a 3-room-and-through-passage plan former Dartmoor longhouse facing north-west and
built down a gentle slope. At the uphill right end there is a small unheated room,
originally the dairy. The hall has a large stack backing onto the passage. The
shippon was brought into domestic use circa 1970. Mid C17 kitchen added at right
angles to rear of the hall. It has an end stack with a newel stair rising
alongside. This is a house with a long and complex structural history. The
original early C16 house seems to have been open to the roof from end to end,
divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. Through the later C16
and early C17 the rooms were progressively floored over and the hall stack was
inserted. After the addition of the kitchen wing the hall would be the parlour.
Now 2 storeys throughout.
Exterior: irregular 3-window front of C20 casements without glazing bars. The left
end window is blocking the former cow door and the left first floor window is
blocking the hayloft loading hatch. The passage front doorway is left of centre and
now occupied by a C20 door narrower than the original. There is here the remains of
a C16 or C17 porch once roofed by a large slab of granite. The main roof is gable-
ended. The left end wall (to the shippon) contains 3 slit windows to the shippon.
The central one may have been the dung hatch although there is a larger window in
the rear wall. Single vent slit to the former hayloft. Kitchen has similar
fenestration to the front and it too is gable-ended.
Good interior containing elements from all its main historic building phases. The
earliest feature is the true cruck principal in the roof near the upper side of the
passage. Most of the truss has been removed by the insertion of the hall stack.
The surviving fragment is early C16 and smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire.
The rest of the main block roof structure was replaced circa 1975. The inner room
was probably the first to be floored and some timbers projecting into the hall might
suggest the chamber jettied into the hall. The rubble crosswall below (at the upper
end of the hall) is a rebuild and incorporates levelling timbers made up from an old
plank-and-muntin screen, maybe the original low partition there. The hall appears
to have been floored in the mid or late C16; unusually early for this part of
Devon. The crossbeam is set half way between inner room and passage and therefore
is close to the chimney breast. Its soffit is richly moulded towards the upper end
but only chamfered towards the passage. On the passage side some contemporary
soffit-chamfered and step-stopped joists survive. Their arrangement and
relationship with the chimney breast seems to suggest that the present stack
replaced a mid or late C16 smoke hood as Alcock argues. If so the present large
granite ashlar fireplace with hollow-chamfered surround is late C16 or early C17.
On the lower side of the passage there is no longer a crosswall. The hayloft
crossbeam is roughly-finished. There is still a granite tethering post at the end.
The kitchen has a roughly-finished crossbeam and a granite fireplace with soffit-
chamfered and step-stopped oak lintel and side ovens. The 2-bay roof here is
carried on a face-pegged jointed cruck truss.
This is a very interesting example of a Dartmoor longhouse in the attractive hamlet
of Chapple which includes several listed buildings.
Source. N W Alcock. Devonshire Farmhouses. Part II. Some Dartmoor Houses. Trans.
Devon. Assoc. Vol 101 (1969) pp 87-92.

Listing NGR: SX6710889084

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17537556

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

• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments