Description

PLYMTREE
ST 00 SE
3/123 Fordmoor Farmhouse including front
garden walls and gate piers
22.2.55
- II*

Small mansion, former manor house. Late C17 with some C20 modernisations. English
bond local handmade red brick on stone rubble footings; brick stacks and
chimneyshafts; slate roof, probably thatch originally.
Plan: L-plan house. The main block has a 3-room plan. The right (east) room is the
parlour and it has a rear lateral stack. The principal chamber above has a
projecting end stack on timber and moulded brick corbels. In the centre is a large
entrance hall which contains the main stair against the back wall. The left (west)
room is the dining room with an end stack. The kitchen occupies the rear block
behind the dining room. It has an end stack. The house has undergone only minor
modernisations since it was built. However the farmer reports that the earlier
farmhouse survived into living memory behind the present house and had been
converted to service use. It has been replaced by C20 service outshots across the
rear of the main block. The house is 2 storeys with attics and there is a circa
1980 conservatory in front of the left end.
Exterior is very good: originally symmetrical 9-window front but now the end
windows are blocked and there is the C20 conservatory in front of the left end. All
the rest are original oak mullion-and-upper-transom windows containing smaller than
usul rectangular panes of leaded glass, including a few probably original green-
tinged panes. Also several of the iron casements are original and have ornate
wrought iron catches. There are low segmental brick arches over the ground floor
windows. There is a flat brick platband at first floor level which steps up over
the central doorway. The bead-moulded oak doorframe and mullioned overlight are
original but the panelled doors are secondary. The flat-roofed porch with moulded
entablature and modillion cornice is also original although its supporting posts
have been replaced. Plain eaves cornice and the tall and steeply pitched roof is
hipped both ends, so too is the rear block. The stair rises above the rear roof
pitch with its own hipped roof. The windows round the rest of the house are mostly
original and like those on the front. The rear platbands rise like hoodmoulds over
the stair windows giving that seetiona panelled appearance.
Interior is good and well-preserved: containing a great deal of original carpentry,
joinery and plaster. The main stair is a good dogleg stair rising along the axis of
the main block; it has a moulded closed string, square newel posts with ball
finials, flat moulded handrail and large turned balusters. The principal parlour is
lined with bolection-moulded panelling in 2 heights including a good chimneypiece.
There is an identical chimneypiece to the principal chamber above where the ceiling
has an original moulded plaster cornice and ornamental plasterwork oval made up of
moulded oak leaves. The dining room and the chamber above include the remains of
moulded plaster cornices both of which appear to suggest that part of tne rooms were
partitioned off as closets or lobbies. Both chimneypieces here are replacements.
The kitchen has a high ceiling carried on exposed axial beams and although the
fireplace is blocked its chamfered and step-stopped oak lintel is exposed. The roof
is carried on original A-frame trusses with pegged and spike lap-jointed collars.
In fact some of the rear principals curve into the wall like crucks with short feet.
From each end of the front brick walls project forward then return across the front
enclosing the front garden. They were probably built at the same time as the house
but most has been rebuilt. Only the east side and the front gate posts appear to be
original. The gate posts are square in section and have volcanic ashlar caps with
ball finials.
Fordmoor Farmhouse is a remarkably well-preserved late C17 house, an early example
for Devon of a brick country mansion. Indeed it must be one of the earliest. The
Ford family lived on the site from the reign of Henry II until 1702. They probably
built the house in the late C17 and in the early c18 it was occupied by Charles
Philpot, esquire.
Source: Edwin S. Chalk. Early brick buildings in Devon and Cornwall, Devon and
Cornwall Notes and Queries, No. 22 Part 1 (1920 - 21) pp. 55 - 56.

Listing NGR: ST0584003229

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17546998

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

• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas