Description

HOLCOMBE ROGUS SOUTH STREET, Holcombe Rogus
ST 01 NE
5/133 Thatches Farmhouse
-
GV II

Farmhouse. Early C16 with major later C16 and C17 improvements, refurbished and
rearranged a little in the late C19. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone
rubble stacks with stone rubble chimneyshafts topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch
roof, slate to rear outshots.
Plan and development: long main block faces onto a garden to the south-east. It is
an altered 4-room-and-through-passage plan house. The left end room is the former
service end kitchen with a large gable-end stack. A newel stair alcove rises to
rear of it and, in front of it, a former walk-in curing chamber projects forward.
The kitchen has been enlarged by the removal of the lower passage screen. The hall
has an axial stack backing onto the site of the former passage. The hall has been
enlarged a little by moving the upper hall partition into the former inner room
which was, in the C19, converted to the entrance hall containing the new stair. The
fourth room, at the right end, is a parlour with an end stack and an alcove
alongside for a newel stair. To rear of the hall and passage a rear block projects
at right angles and has an outer lateral stack. An alcove in the angle of the 2
wings was probably for a newel stair from the hall.
This is a house with a long and complex structural history. The early C16 house was
the 3-room-and-through-passage section of the main block. This house was open to
the roof from end to end, was divided by low partitions and it was heated by an open
hearth fire. Through the later C16 and C17 the hall stack was inserted and the
house progressively floored over. The service end was refurbished with a new
kitchen fireplace in the early or mid C17. The parlour extension and rear block
were probably added about the same time. The house was remodelled in the C19 when
the original passage was abandoned and a new entrance inserted into the former inner
room where a new main stair was built. The house is 2 storeys with secondary
outshots (which have been rebuilt in the C20) across the rear.
Exterior: irregular 5-window front of C19 and C20 timber and iron-framed casements
containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The first floor windows rise into the
thatch. The roof is gable-ended with an uneven ridge line.
Interior: all the ground floor rooms have similar cross or axial beams; they have
deep hollow chamfers with step stops and the fireplaces are stone rubble with
soffit-chamfered oak lintels, the parlour one with step stops. In the former
kitchen there is the headbeam of an oak plank-and-muntin screen which formerly made
up of the passage lower partition. The parlour has a curious oak-framed alcove in
the front wall.
The early C16 roof structure survives intact over the original part of the main
block. It is carried on a series of side-pegged jointed crucks. The whole roof,
including the common rafters and underside of the thatch is smoke-blackened from the
original open hearth fire. The upper hall crosswall is smoke-blackened on the hall
side showing that the inner room chamber was built before the hall fireplace. There
is a hip cruck arrangement over the former inner room proving that the parlour is an
extension. The roof over this part is inaccessible although the base of a side-
pegged jointed cruck truss shows on the first floor.
This is an attractive, well-preserved and interesting farmhouse.

Listing NGR: ST0568918797

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26400290

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

• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)