Description

YARCOMBE
ST 20 NW
7/166 Livenhayes Farmhouse (formerly
listed as Livehayne)
22.2.55
GV II"

Farmhouse. Probably early C16 with major later and C17 improvements (the kitchen
refurbishment is dated 1662), some C19 modernisation. Local stone and flint rubble;
stone rubble stacks and Beerstone ashlar chimneyshafts; thatch roof, slate to rear
outshots.
Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south and built
down the hillslope. Uphill at the left (west) end is an unheated inner room which
is still used as a dairy. Next to it is the hall with an axial stack backing onto
the passage. Downhill at the right (east) end is the kitchen with a gable-end
stack.
The roofspace is inaccessible and therefore the early structural history of the
house cannot be ascertained. It certainly began as some form of open hall house and
was probably heated by an open hearth fire. The owner reports that the thatcher
noticed some smoke-blackened timbers in the roof. The chamber over the inner room
dairy jetties into the upper end of the hall. It may well be an original feature
and the doorway in the face of the partition is thought to have been for a ladder
access to the chamber from the hall. The hall stack was probably inserted in the
mid or late C16 and the hall was floored in the late C16 - early C17. The service
end was thoroughly refurbished to provide a kitchen in 1662 by Samuel Newbury
according to a plaque in the chimneyshaft.
The house is 2 storeys with secondary outshots to rear of the hall, passage and
kitchen.
Exterior: irregular 4-window front. Most are probably early C19 casements
containing rectangular panes of leaded glass but the kitchen has a replacement
casement with glazing bars. The dairy window is unglazed, covered with metal gauze
and has internal shutters. The other dairy windows are similar and that in the end
wall is probably C17; 2 lights with chamfered mullion. The first floor windows rise
a short distance into the eaves. The passage front doorway is right of centre and
contains a C19 part-glazed plank door behind a contemporary gabled hood on shaped
raking struts and is now argumented by a pair of timber posts. The front wall is
propped by a couple of C19 raking buttresses. The roof is half-hipped to left and
gable-ended to right.
Good interior: the dairy has a plain chamfered crossbeam. The partition between
the dairy and hall is plastered over but is evidently oak-framed. The hall has high
quality carpentry detail. The fireplace is blocked by a C19 grate but its large
size is evident and a fine overmantel is exposed carved out of the oak lintel; it is
moulded with an embattled crest. The ceiling is 6-panel of richly-moulded
intersecting beams and abuts the internal jetty at the upper end. The features of
the kitchen end all date from 1662. Along the lower (kitchen) side of the passage
is an oak plank-and-muntin screen. On the kitchen side the muntins are chamfered
with step stops over an oak bench. The crossbeam is chamfered with scroll stops.
The large kitchen fireplace is painted stone ashlar with an oak lintel and low
Tudor-arch head with a chamfered surround. The large oven with cast iron door was
rebuilt in the C19. The lintel is continued across a cupboard to right. This was
originally a walk-in curing chamber with an arched head cut into the lintel (this is
now hidden).
On the first floor the partition of the original jettied chamber is a closed truss
including an oak plank-and-muntin screen which includes the ladder access doorway; a
2-centred arch with moulded surround. The rest of the roof is carried on jointed
cruck trusses, one of which is plastered over. Without access to the roofspace it
is not possible to ascertain whether the trusses are all contemporary.
Livenhayes is a particularly good example of a late medieval farmhouse which was
modernised in the C16 and C17 to an unusually high standard.

Listing NGR: ST2386607384

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17547460

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.

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