Description

PLYMTREE
ST 00 SE
3/120 Clyst William Barton Farmhouse
- II
-

Farmhouse. Early C16 with major later C16, C17 and early C18 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 C19 and C20
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 C16 and the
lower end was probably floored over at the same time. The hall was floored over in
the mid C17. Also the inner room end was rebuilt and enlarged to provide kitchen
and dairy/buttery in the mid C17 and the lower end was probably converted to a
parlour at the same time. There is some evidence of modernisation in the early C18
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 C20 casements without
glazing bars and the front end of the crosswing has a first floor C19 6-pane sash
(there are more on the side) over a C19 French window with a hood on shaped
brackets. The passage front doorway is alongside the crosswing and it contains a
C19 6-panel door behind a C20 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 C19
chimneypiece. However a cupboard here is probably C18; 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 C19 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 C18 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.

Listing NGR: ST0692802822

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26390326

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

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)