Description

SX 6493 - 6593 SOUTH TAWTON SOUTH ZEAL

8/244 The Stores

GV II

Shop with accommodation, former merchants house. C16 and C17 with superficial
modernisations since. Plastered cob and stone rubble; stone rubble stacks topped
with C19 and C20 brick; slate roof with pierced crested ridge tiles, formerly
thatch.
Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan town house occupying the full
frontage of a medieval burgage plot and built along the street facing south-west and
built down the slope. Inner room at the uphill left end is heated by a rear lateral
stack. The hall is heated by a large-axial stack backing onto the passage. The
service end room, now the shop, has an end stack backing onto the adjoining house.
Because the roof structure was replaced in the early C20 it is impossible here to
outline the early devlopment of the house. Nevertheless it seems probable that the
house originated as some kind of open hall house. However nothing shows earlier
than a mid C17 house with a floored over hall and fireplace. 2 storeys throughout.
Exterior: the front is plastered to look like coursed rusticated ashlar. Regular
but not symmetrical 4-window front of early C20 8 (6/2) sashes and, on the right
end, a C20 plate glass shop window. Front doorway to original passage is right of
centre and contains a C20 part-glazed door. The roof is hipped to right and half-
hipped to left.
Interior: is largely the result of C19 and C20 modernisations. However the
historic plan survives and, it appears, most of it hidden behind C19 and C20
plaster. For instance, the shop in the lower end has a plastered over axial beam
and the fireplace is blocked. The hall however appears to be wholly the result of a
mid C17 refurbishment. The doorway from the passage has a chamfered oak frame
containing a mid C17 door; a plank door hung on strap hinges with studded and
moulded coverstrips producing a panelled front. The hall fireplace is blocked. The
crossbeam however is ovolo-moulded with runout stops and the doorways to the inner
room and staircase are also ovolo-moulded with roll stops. The inner room ceiling
may be earlier and has a plain soffit-chamfered axial beam with joists of large
scantling, the oak floorboards above are held in place by oak pegs rather than
nails). The stair rising from the upper end of the hall is unusually wide. Its
thought to be mid C17 in date. Only C20 carpentry shows on the first floor and the
roof is also early C20.
The Stores probably has earlier features than those exposed. South Zeal is an
important medieval market town in south Devon in which a group of heavily disguised
C16 and C17 houses form a group with the Oxenham Arms (q.v) and Chapel of St. Mary
(q.v).

Listing NGR: SX6510993577

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26465215

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

• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings