Description

ST 14 SE STRINGSTON

309/6/194 Prior's Farmhouse including
Farm building adjoining East

22.05.1969 II*

Farmhouse, and adjoining farm building. Circa C15/16; remodelled and extended in mid C17; remodelled circa early C19, when farm building was added. Stone rubble, mostly roughcast. Bitumenised slate roof with gabled ends. Axial and gable-end stacks with rebuilt brick shafts.
PLAN: 3-room and through-passage plan, large lower end room to right [S] with a gable-end fireplace, hall with an axial stack backing onto the passage, and an unheated inner room on left [N]. The axial stack was built in the hall possibly before the insertion of the floor in about the mid C17, when a parlour wing with a chamber above was built on the front [W] of the high end of the house. What was possibly a cider house wing was built at the rear of the kitchen at the low right end of the house in the C17. In about the early C19 the house was remodelled, re-roofed and refenestrated, an outshut was built at the back and the rear [cider house] wing was extended by the addition of a long stable or shippon range.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 1:1:2 window west front with gable-ended parlour wing to left of centre; early C19 2,3 and 4-light casements with glazing bars, first floor with small gables over; C17 3-light wooden ovolo-moulded window on gable end of parlour wing; C19 glazed and panelled through-passage door to right of wing with C20 verandah porch on right side of wing; on left [N] side of wing a stair turet with lean-to roof. On the S gable-end of main range a lean-to outshut over projecting oven. Rear [E] 3-light early C19 casements with leaded panes on first floor, and single-storey outshut with lean-to roof below; 2-storey wing on left, extended in early C19 as long stable or shippon range with flat stone arches to doorways and windows on ground floor and with loft windows above; only one small opening on south elevation facing road, and with later C19 lean-to on east gable end.
INTERIOR: Through-passage has chamfered beam on left side and blocked rear doorway, its old plank door and frame re-used in side of rear outshut. Large right-hand end room [former kitchen] with chamfered cross-beam with mutilated step stops and chamfered half-beam over gable-end fireplace, its later chimneypiece concealing a fireplace with a smoking chamber and oven. Hall has large axial fireplace backing onto the passage with monolithic hollow-chamfered stone jambs and renewed timber lintel; inserted chamfered axial beam with cyma stops; doorway to inner room has heavy chamfered wooden frame, its Tudor arch partly cut away and with studded plank door with decorated wrought-iron hinges. Parlour has ovolo-moulded stone fireplace, the jamb mouldings continued into cambered timber bressumer; moulded plaster overmantel above with moulded cornice and frieze with naive figures, plants, festoons and plaque inscribed: P over GI and with date 1658; moulded plaster ceiling in four compartments with floral sprays and vestigial pendants, the moulded plaster intersecting beams with deep cornice friezes with dolphins linked to gadrooned vases. Parlour chamber above has fireplace with moulded stone jambs and timber bressumer and moulded plaster architraves with frieze of trailing vines, fleurons, cornice and plaque above inscribed GP over I and with date 1641; ovolo and cyma cornice mouldings around projecting plastered trusses; 7-panel door to stair turret with scratch-mouldings on inner side. Circa early C19 joinery, including plank doors; later C19 staircase rising from hall. Parlour wing has C17 roof with two trusses with halved, lapped and dovetailed collars, trenched purlins and diagonal ridgepiece. Main range has early C19 roof with two tiers of staggered tenoned purlins. Rear wing has chamfered cross-beams with long cyma stops; cider-house beyond with later cider-press; C19 collar truss roof.
SOURCES: Penoyre, J. and J., Decorative Plasterwork in Houses of Somerset 1500-1700; pp 40 and 80. VAG Report, unpublished SRO, September 1981; VCH Somerset, vol.5.

Listing NGR: ST1775142594

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17556077

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

• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
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  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)