Description

TRULL

439/8/164 CHILLISWOOD LANE
17-MAY-85 (North side)
CHILLISWOOD FARMHOUSE WITH HORSE-ENGIN
E HOUSE AND BARN

II*
House, barn and horse-engine house. Medieval; substantially rebuilt later C16/ early C17; partly remodelled circa 1830s, possibly by Richard Carver. Rendered stone rubble and cob. Slate and clay double-Roman tile roofs. Axial stacks with brick shafts; south range has stone stacks with cornices.
PLAN: Courtyard plan. The long 3-room plan east range is probably the site of the Medieval main range, the hall of which has a large fireplace in an axial stack backing not onto a cross-passage, but directly adjacent to the kitchen at the north end with a gable-end fireplace with an oven and what seems to be a corn drying chamber behind. The south end of the east range, the inner room, has been truncated when the large late C16 south range was added. The south range contained parlours and a newel stair turret at the rear in the south east corner of the courtyard. On the north side of the courtyard there a late C16/ early C17 barn with a C19 horse-engine house on the outer side. In about the 1830s the south range was remodelled and enlarged in the Tudor Gothic/ Classical style with a conservatory added on the east end and an archway on the west end to the courtyard. The west range is said to be the site of the C19 chapel, but has a C17 window although it is not known whether a licence was granted for a chapel-of-ease in the Middle Ages.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. symmetrical 3-bay south front, gabled centre breaks forward with rusticated quoins with slight moulded cornices under sprocketed overhanging eaves, the gable with moulded bargeboards, stone finial, shield and tablet inscribed 1594; 4-light ground floor and smaller replacement 3-light first floor casements with glazing bars and stone hoodmoulds; stone plinth moulding; small wooden cusped head lancet in west gable end; stone flanking gables with finials and Tudor arches, the right a conservatory, the left an archway to the courtyard behind. East elevation: conservatory on left reduced in height between two gables and with main entrance inside with panelled and glazed double door under cranked head; east range to right has various C19 casements with glazing bars and 5-light wooden mullion hall window to left of centre, possibly reduced from full-height Medieval hall window and widened; outshut to right and 3-light mullion window and projecting oven to right of that. Rear [N] elevation, projecting gable-end of east range on left wih small single-light chamfered attic window, range to right has has 3-light chamfered wooden frame window on ground floor and applied timber-framing above; lower roof line to barn on right with cart-entrance and projecting polygonal horse-engine house to right. Courtyard: the rear of south range has broad gable on left with small single-light chamfered attic window and outshut in angle on right; west side of east range has outshut on right and 2- and 4-light moulded mullion windows on left; left return 3-light chamfered window and south side of north range two 3-light mullion windows; east side of west range also has mullion window.
INTERIOR: East range, former hall has large fireplace with chamfered ashlar jambs and chamfered timber bressumer, deeply chamfered cross-beams, plank-and-muntin screen at south end, panelled window benches and stone-flagged floor; former kitchen to north has large fireplace with stone jambs, timber bressumer and oven, plaster ceiling with wrought-iron hooks and studded door with wrought-iron strap-hinges to passageway in wing to west, which has chamfered beams with bar-and-cyma stops; ceiled chambers above hall and kitchen but with exposed side-pegged jointed-cruck trusses with straight mortice-and-tenoned collars, trenched purlins, diagonally-set ridgepiece. The south range: remodelled early-mid C19 with moulded plastered ceiling cornices, chimneypieces and panelled doors with cranked arch heads, but large late C16 plank-and-muntin screens remain between entrance hall and dining room and dining room and drawing room with chamfered Tudor arch doorway; large newel stairs with octagonal newel-post with ball finial; roof over south range replaced with king-post trusses, but one late C16 closed queen-post and collar truss remains towards east end. The barn has side-pegged jointed-cruck trusses, similar to those over east range, with mortice-and-tenoned straight collars, trenched purlins and diagonally-set ridgepiece; partly ceiled and stables inserted. Horse-engine house has large tie-beam with king-post, but machinery removed.
A large house of Medieval origins, much reconstructed in the late C16 and early C17 and partly remodelled in about the 1830s, but little altered since the C19.
SOURCE: Somerset Vernacular Building Research Group; survey report, April 1999.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17555359

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 Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)