Description

SY 09 SW AYLESBEARE

3/4 Rosamondford Farmhouse
-

- II

Farmhouse. Late C15-early C16 origins with major later C16 and C17 improvements,
re-roofed in C18, extended and modernised circa 1900. The original house is of
plastered cob on stone rubble footings, the circa 1900 extension of exposed brick;
stone rubble and brick stacks topped with circa 1900 brick and some contemporary
chimney pots; thatch roof to main block, slate to outshots.
The original house facing south has a 3-room-and-through-passage plan with the small
unheated inner room at the right (eastern) end. The hall has a rear lateral stack
and the service end room had an end stack which is now axial and serving back-to-
back fireplaces. Circa 1900 an extra room was added this end. At about the same
time 2-storey outshots were built along the back of the original house. These
include a kitchen with a slightly higher lean-to roof and a large projecting rear
stack behind the inner room and the outshot behind the service end room has a rear
corner stack. The rear passage doorway was blocked when the outshots were built.
Now 2 storeys throughout.
Irregular 4-window front of C19 and C20 casements, only the earliest with glazing
bars. The left end bay, the circa 1900 section, is red brick with a band of white
brick at first floor level. The front passage doorway is now roughly central and
contains a part-glazed late C19 4-panel door under a C20 tile-roofed porch which
extends to left over a contemporary bay window. There is a secondary C20 door at
the right end behind a C20 tile-roofed conservatory. The roof is continuous and
half-hipped each end. The circa 1900 left (western) end has a strip of cross-braced
framing under the eaves with a 2-window front below of contemporary casements with
glazing bars. On the left side is a contemporary door, 2 panels below a large glass
panel containing an unusual pattern of curving glazing bars. The contemporary brick
porch has a coloured tile floor, front window with leaded glass, a reused C15 tiny
Beerstone lancet with trefoil head in the outer side and hipped thatch roof.
Good interior. The oldest feature exposed is the late C15-early C16 oak plank-and-
muntin screen at the upper end of the hall. It has unusually broad muntins which
are chamfered with cut diagonal stops above bench level and includes a large round-
headed doorway towards the rear. It looks as though it had been a low partition
screen in the original open hall house, and the beam arrangement in the hall
suggests that a chamber was added over the inner room jettying a little into the
hall. If so it must have been added in the mid or late C16. The passage and
service end room were apparently rebuilt in the early C17 and the hall was floored
over about the same time. The hall-passage partition is an oak plank-and-muntin
screen, its muntins are chamfered with scroll stops. Another similar screen is
suspected behind the plaster on the lower side of the passage. The axial beam and
half beams in the hall and the crossbeam in the service end room are soffit-
chamfered with scroll stops. Both hall and service room fireplaces are blocked. On
the first floor no early features are exposed and the roof was probably raised in
the C18 since it is carried on a series of A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed
collars and X-apexes of that date and reusing a few smoke-blackened members from the
original roof.
Rosamondford has a long structural history and the upper hall screen is remarkable
both for its early date and completeness.
The earliest documentary reference refers to Laford in 1244.
Source Devon SMR

Listing NGR: SY0265591568

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26614061

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 (New Ed)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)