Description

SX 6493 - 6593 SOUTH TAWTON SOUTH ZEAL

8/245 Snowdrops

GV II

House, once 2 cottages but originally a single house. Early C16 with major later
C16 and C17 improvements, split into 2 cottages in C18 or C19 and reunited in C20,
modernised circa 1980. Plastered granite stone rubble with some cob; granite
stacks, one disused the other with its original granite ashlar chimneyshaft now
plastered; slate roof, formerly thatch.
Plan and development: 2-room-and-through-passage plan house built parallel to but
set back a short distance from the street and facing south-west. The right room is
the service end room and has an end kitchen stack backing onto the adjoining house,
Buttercup Cottage (q.v). The hall to right has an axial stack backing onto tile
passage. There is no inner room and the house appears to occupy the full width of
its historic burgage plot. Outshots across the rear were rebuilt circa 1980 but
section behind hall seems to include some early walling but it cannot be proved to
be original. The original main block was open to the roof from end to end, divided
by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. The hall fireplace was
probably inserted in the late C16, the kitchen fireplace in the C17. Flooring the
service end of indeterminate date. The hall was floored in the early or mid C17.
Now 2 storeys with late C19 service outshot to front now used as a garage.
Exterior: irregular 3-window front of C20 casements, the ground floor ones both
circa 1986. Passage front doorway contains a C20 door behind a contemporary porch.
Roof runs along the building between the adjoining houses.
Interior: was thoroughly modernised circa 1980 but the historic structure was
largely left intact. The hall fireplace is granite ashlar, hooded with granite
corbels and includes a C19 oven. Crossbeam here is soffit-chamfered with step
stops. Service end kitchen has a fireplace with replacement lintel and curious
alcove behind a round-headed stone arch alongside. Kitchen crossbeam is roughly-
finished. Original 4-bay roof carried on large side-pegged jointed cruck trusses
with cambered collars and the whole carpentry structure is smoke-blackened from the
open hearth fire.
South Zeal is special being one of few medieval boroughs in Devon where a high
proportion of its C16 and C17 houses still survive.

Listing NGR: SX6514793561

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26399927

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

• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)