Description

ST 11 SW
10/56

CULMSTOCK
HILLMOOR
Jerwoods Farmhouse

II

Farmhouse. Mid-late C16 (possibly earlier core), C17 and early C18 improvements,
modernised circa 1970. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble and cob
stacks topped with C20 brick; thatch roof.
Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south and built
across a gentle hillslope. Unheated inner room at the left (west) end although the
first floor chamber is heated by a gable-end stack. Hall has a large axial stack
backing onto the passage. The service end room has a rear lateral stack against the
end corner. The original house was some kind of open hall house but since the roof
appears clean it was probably built with the hall fireplace. The inner room may
have been floored from the beginning but the stairs here are C20. It seems likely
that the west end here has been rebuilt reducing the size of the inner room which
may have been a heated parlour. The service end has been much-altered. The stack
has been inserted and this end subdivided. This may have happened in the early C18
but could be as late as the C19. The hall was floored over in the early or mid C17.
The house is 2 storeys.
Exterior: irregular 4-window front of mostly C20 casements, some with rectangular
panes of leaded glass. A couple maybe C18, and the hall window is interesting and
maybe early or mid C17; it is 4 lights with moulded oak mullions which have been
refashioned to flat faces in the early C18. Passage front doorway is C20 behind a
contemporary stone rubble gabled porch. Similar rear fenestration and similar C20
porch. Roof is gable-ended to left and half-hipped to right.
Good interior: retaining a good deal of early carpentry detail. The oak plank-and-
muntin screen along the lower side of the passage may be original. It is plain on
the service room side but the muntins are chamfered with straight cut stops on the
passage side. The doorway is the original but its head, either a low Tudor arch or
crank head, has been a little altered. The service room has plain carpentry detail;
both the fireplace oak lintel and crossbeam have rough soffit-chamfers. The hall is
good. The hall fireplace has Beerstone cheeks, moulded with triple rolls, and a
soffit-chamfered oak lintel. It looks like the oak lintel is secondary; maybe the
fireplace was altered when the hall was floored. Opposite at the upper end of the
hall is an oak plank-and-muntin screen similar to that in the passage and containing
a Tudor arch doorway. The crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with step stops. The inner
room has a soffit-chamfered axial beam with lambstongue stops on the hall end only.
No early carpentry is exposed on the first floor apart from the lower parts of the
original roof trusses; a series of clean side-pegged jointed crucks with cambered
collars.
The house was visited in 1985 by Commander EHD Williams who wrote a short account of
the house and drew a ground plan. His analysis of the building is similar to the
above although he suggested a starting date of around 1500.

Listing NGR: ST1063513204

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26595026

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

• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)