Lower Sessland Farmhouse Including Cob Walls Adjoining to North West and South West, South Tawton, Devon

Description

SX 69 NE SOUTH TAWTON SESSLAND LANE

1/196 Lower Sessland Farmhouse
including cob walls adjoining
22.2.67 to north-west and south-west
(formerly listed as Sessland)
II*

Farmhouse, a Dartmoor longhouse type. Early C16 with major later C16, C17 and early
C18 improvements, the latest probably associated with a date of 1715. Plastered
cob on stone rubble footings, some large blocks of granite ashlar shows to rear;
local stone rubble stacks and chimneyshafts; thatch roof, a lot replaced with
corrugated iron.
Plan and development: T-shaped plan. The main block faces south-west and is built
down the hillslope. It has a 5-room-and-through-passage longhouse-type plan. The 2
rooms uphill at the left (north-western) end are now used as a separate cottage.
There is an axial stack between the 2 rooms and another axial stack backs onto the
former inner room. This inner room (above the hall) is small and unheated, probably
a former dairy. The hall has a large axial stack backing onto the passage and a
full height projecting window bay to rear. Also a winder stair to the passage
chamber at the front lower end of the hall. Shippon with hayloft over on lower side
of passage. Parlour block with projecting gable-end stack projects forward at right
angles to front of hall. To rear of the hall, immediately left of the hall bay,
there is an open-sided pumphouse with a chamber over. It looks like (and was
probably intended to look like) a 2-storey porch but the passage rear doorway is
left of it. This is a very interesting farmhouse with a long and complex structural
history. The late medieval core was a 3-room-and-through-passage plan longhouse.
This house was open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open
hearth fire. The inner room was probably floored over in the mid C16. The hall
fireplace was inserted with the passage chamber in the late C16. The hall was
floored over in the aid C17 with the building of the hall window bay. The pumphouse
and parlour wing are also probably mid C17, the latter containing the main stair.
The parlour was the main focus of an early C18 refurbishment. The shippon was
refurbished in the mid C17. The 2-room cottage at the upper end was not available
for inspection at the time of this survey but it too is thought to be C17 and is
said to contain the former kitchen. House is 2 storeys.
Exterior: irregular 3-window front to left of the parlour block, all C19 and C20
casements with glazing bars. Passage front doorway immediately left of the parlour
contains a C19 door behind a C20 porch. The roof is gable-ended. The rear
elevation is the more interesting. Here what survives of the C19 plaster is incised
as ashlar and some of the windows retain parts of their C17 oak frames. The hall
bay is gabled; so too is the pumphouse, the upper room of which is supported on
roughly-squared monolithic granite posts. The pumphouse chamber shelters the well
and there is a trough and lead pump there. The trough is a C20 replacement
although the original granite one lies nearby. The shippon cow door is left of the
passage rear doorway and it contains a late C16-early C17 oak frame with segmental
head and chamfered surround. Hayloft loading hatch directly above. Shippon
contains a series of tiny windows on each side most of them now blocked but some
still with C16 or C17 oak frames. 2 windows to shippon in end wall, the larger one
is the dung hatch. Drain is still in operation.
Good interior: hall has large granite ashlar fireplace with hollow-chamfered
surround. The mid C17 axial beam is soffit-chamfered with scroll-bar-scroll stops.
Dairy has a plain axial beam of indeterminate date. The parlour is particularly
good. The mid C17 crossbeam has plain soffit chamfers. Contemporary stair rises
along wall of main block dividing at the top to the chambers over the hall and
parlour. Closed string stair with square newel posts and ball caps, moulded flat
handrail and turned balusters. Early C18 chimneypiece with bolection surround and
panelled chimneybreast. Alongside to right a full height cupboard with panelled
doors and dentil cornice. 2 other contemporary cupboards in the same room. Several
2-panel doors around the house of same date and, like the cupboard doors, hung on H-
hinges. It may be that the parlour is wholly early C18 but the 2-bay roof A-frame
has a pegged lap-jointed collar with dovetail halvings which must be mid C17. The
oak doorframe to the pumphouse chamber has a narrow ovolo-moulded surround with
ramshead stops and contains a plank door with 2 applied panels; it is complete with
all its fittings including the wooden handle. The gable end truss of the pumphouse
chamber is a most unusual jointed cruck with the tongue of each cruck post extending
far up the principals and halved into them. Roof of main block is carried on
original side-pegged jointed crucks with cambered collars. All the roof structure
including the purlins, common rafters and the thatch where it survives is heavily
smoke-blackened. The cottage was not available for inspection but, if the main
house is anything to go by, probably contains much C17 carpentry and other detail.
The shippon is still used although the doorway through from the passage is now
blocked. It has a cobbled floor with granite kerbs to the central drain and some
granite slabs with holes for the tethering posts. The roof has been much mended,
but essentially is still made up of mid C17 A-frame trusses with dovetail-shaped
pegged lap-jointed collars.
From the front of the shippon a high cob wall with tile coping projects forward and
returns a short distance along the front of the garden. Another similar extends
north-westwards from the left end but the section between these two has been rebuilt
in the C20.
There is, in the RAM Museum Exeter, a wrought iron door knocker inscribed with the
date 1715 and the initials of William and Mary Oxenham from this farmhouse. It may
date the early C18 modernisation of the house. Devon SMR mentions an oak screen but
Lega-Weekes mentions one only in a second house close by to the north-east which has
now collapsed. Lower Sessland is very important multi-phase Devon farmhouse. It is
both attractive and well-preserved containing high quality work from all the major
building phases. It is also remarkable for having a well-preserved shippon still in
use. Also the C17 pumphouse is a most unusual feature.
Source: Ethel Lega-Weekes. Neighbours of North Wyke, Part II. Trans. Devon. Assoc.
34 (1902) p 647 & plates facing ps 635 and 647.

Listing NGR: SX6783497549

External Links

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