Cleaveanger Farmhouse Including Barn Adjoining to East, Nymet Rowland, Devon

Description

NYMET ROWLAND
SS 70 NW
2/48
- Cleaveanger Farmhouse
including barn adjoining
to east
- II*

Farmhouse. Late C15-early C16 with major C16 and C17 improvements; rearranged and
enlarged circa 1830-40. The older parts are plastered cob on stone rubble footings,
the C19 work is plasterd rubble; stone rubble stacks with plastered chimney shafts
of C19 brick; slate roofs, some replaced by corrugated asbestos, the earlier parts
were formerly thatched.
The house now has a rambling plan and the earlier parts were rearranged circa 1830-
40. The original house was apparently a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house
facing south with the inner room at the left (west) end. The service end room is
now a barn. The hall has a massive axial stack at the upper end. A late C16-early
C17 rear block was added at right angles to rear of the inner room with an end
stack. Probably at this time the inner room became a buttery. Circa 1830-40 a 2-
room block with central entrance hall and staircase was built a short distance in
front of the main range. It is connected by a narrow lobby. The new C19 block has
end stacks and provided new principal rooms. It overlaps the inner room/buttery and
part of the hall and extends beyond the inner room end a little to the left (west).
2 storeys.
The C19 block has a symmetrical 3-window front around the central doorway. The
original 4-panel door has an overlight with central glazing bar, panelled reveals, a
flat-roofed Tuscan porch with granite columns and moulded entablature. There are
flanking 16-pane sashes and a central first floor 12-pane sash. There are stucco
quoins on all the corners. The eaves are carried on pairs of shaped brackets.
Along the front the original cast-iron gutter remains and there are lion's head
masks over the joints. The roof is hipped each end and flanked by plastered chimney
shafts. The left (west) end has a 2-window front, the front are blind, the rear is
16-pane sashes. The front of the original main block has a C20 casement without
glazing bars to the hall and a C19 casement with glazing bars to the chamber above.
There is a door immediately to right and another to the barn (and former through
passage) further right. On the rear wall there is a C19 door into the hall and a
C17 oak 2-light, chamfered-mullion window above. The outer side of the rear block
includes an C18 oak 3-light flat-faced mullion window containing rectangular panes
of leaded glass (first floor right) and an early C19 tripartite sash containing a 16-
pane sash (ground floor left) with various C19 and C20 casements. Main and rear
blocks have gable-ended roofs.
Good interior of a house with a long and complex structural history. The original
roof survives over the hall and former passage and service end (now the barn).
There are 4 bays. The truss at the upper end of the hall is mostly boxed in but
appears to be a tie-beam truss suggesting that this truss has always been closed.
The other 3 trusses are jointed crucks, of similar but not identical construction.
The barn truss is face-pegged with a slip tenon. The joint of the truss between is
not exposed. All are built of substantial timbers, have cranked collars and a yoke
at the apex (Alcock's apex type L1). There is a single butt purlins of large
scantling and at the end of the barn a timber supporting the ridge shows that the
roof was originally half-hipped here. The central hall truss has chamfered arch-
braces and the single sets of windbraces either side are mostly intact. The hall
roof retains most of the original common rafters. It is thoroughly sooted
indicating that the hall was originally heated by an open hearth fire. The present
hall chamber ceiling is carried by timbers hung between the purlins and some of
these are smoke-blackened and apparently in situ. Their original function is not
known. The barn roof is clean, suggesting that the lower hall crosswall is
original. The truss however looks at though it was intended to be open and the
original oak plank-and-muntin screen below looks at though it was a low partition
screen. The muntins are chamfered with cut diagonal stops and hollow-chamfered
cornice. It includes shoulder-headed doorways (one is slightly mutilated). There
is a crude cob-nogged large-framed infill above which is sooted on the hall side
only. It includes a probably C18 window containing leaded panes of glass. It is
not clear whether this was the upper or lower passage screen. If the latter, as
seems more likely, then the plastered partition beyond may be the original hall-
passage screen.
The hall itself was floored over in the late C16-early C17 with a soffit-chamfered
and flat pyramid-stopped crossbeam. The hall fireplace is blocked but must be
contemporary with or slightly earlier than the flooring. The rear extension is
probably contemporary since the axial beam is similar to the hall crossbeam. The
hall includes some reset C17 oak-panelled wainscotting and a late C17-early C18 full
height cupboard with fielded panel doors.
The stair alongside the hall fireplace is probably C19. From the stairhead to the
hall chamber is a C17 chamfered and scroll-stopped oak doorframe and there is
another with a kind of exaggerated scroll stops in the partition dividing the hall
chamber into 2. The rear windows are also C17 and oak with chamfered mullions. One
has been described but two 3-light window-frames also remain but are blocked by the
outshot roof. The crosswing roof is C18. The barn (former service end) is part-
floored and includes a C19 cider press with cast-iron screw.
The circa 1830-40 block includes much original joinery including a stick baluster
stair with mahogany handrail. It has a roof of king post trusses.
Because the original house was rearranged circa 1830-40 and certain early features
are probably hidden behind C19 plaster a definitive interpretation of the building
is presently impossible. For instance Charles Hulland mentions the possibility
that it was a longhouse. Nevertheless enough can be seen to show that this is an
important and interesting late medieval house which also preserves widespread
evidence of its development through the later C16 and C17 centuries. Cleaveanger is
first mentioned in 1278 as 'Clifhangre'.
Source: Charles Hulland. Devonshire Farmhouses Part V, Trans. Devon Assoc. 112
(1980) pp. 141-146 gives a slightly different interpretation.

Listing NGR: SS7126207009

External Links

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