Listed Building: WEST CHALLACOMBE MANOR (1306692)

COMBE MARTIN WEST CHALLACOMBE LANE SS 54 NE 1/83 9.3.53 West Challacombe Manor GV II* Small manor house, now farmhouse. C15, with C16 porch and probably C17 rear stair turret; C19 and rear lean-tos. Painted rendered stone rubble and cob; C19 extensions of coursed rubble. Gabled slate roofs; gabled pantile roof to west range, connected by cross wing to 2-storey infill. Tall rear lateral hall stack, of unrendered stone rubble with offsets. Stone rubble stack to left-hand side of cross wing and to lean-to service range to right end. Axial stone rubble stack to range extending to left-hand side of cross wing. Plan and Development: The original 3-room cross-passage plan is that of a very high quality late medieval hall house open to a remarkably fine C15 false hammer beam roof, which is not smoke blackened suggesting that the rear lateral stack is original. Through passage at west end is set against cross wing, 2 storey with a 3-light trefoil-headed mullion window in the solar rear wall; a first-floor round-headed doorway against the stack and the rear mullion window suggest that the wing was 2 storeys originally; divided into 2 rooms in early C19 on both floors, including dairy on ground floor. The east gable wall of the hall is disturbed, indicating that another wing stood at this end. C17 stair turret leads from rear cross-passage opening to NE corner of wing. The kitchen is now in east lean-to, using axial stack in the gable wall, and from its north end a door leads into a dairy, possibly C18. This is behind a probably C18 stair turret which led to a first-floor chamber with a 1732 date plaque. Exterior: 2 storeys. Overall 7-window range. 2-light stone-mullioned porch window, above coat of arms-probably of John Prouz (or Prous) of Chagford who inherited from his grandfather who died in 1548. The C15 cross-passage doorway has 2-centred ashlar arch with ogee and hollow mouldings. Fine original plank door with heavily moulded cover strips and a low set cross-piece forming four panels below; 2 richly carved figures, one with female body and male head and one male, are set on the central panels. Remaining fenestration C19. Hall to right has two 16-panel sashes on each floor and 2-light casement at right end over 6-paned window. Gable end of cross wing to west has 2-light casement on each floor, 8 panes per light, with small weathered datestone of 1703 between. Plank door to single-storey short connecting passage. Two 16-pane sashes over similar sash to left of twin 16-paned sashes extending to left. Large double plank doors at left gable end. Interior: Ground floor is mainly C19 in appearance, with C15 through- passage openings surviving. The rear opening, approached by some steps, is ashlar, chamfered and with a rebate for door. On the first floor a plaster panel on the east gable wall has the date 1732, this room was probably the first inserted into the open hall. The C15 wooden 3-light mullioned window in the rear room has cusped trefoil heads and is not rebated for glazing. The first-floor passage is not ceiled, the oak hall roof having 5 main trusses and 4 subsidiaries. All the trusses are A-frames resting on false hammerbeams. The intermediate trusses are moulded and the 5 main ones have applied mouldings. The double ridge and the 3 tiers of purlins are also moulded, forming squares which all have pairs of windbraces with a foliated cusp on each. Archbracing, also moulded, runs from the collars down onto the hammerbeams. The latter do not all survive, the southern ones in the bedrooms having been removed. the substantial wallplates also carry mouldings. A few rafters are original but most are replacements, some being chestnut. There is evidence that the roof was lined with lath and plaster behind the main structure, with dramatic effect. The C15 false hammer-beam roof, an exceptionally significant survival, may have ben built by the Orchard family, or be connected with the marriage of Joan or Jane Orchard to John Prouz of Chagford about 1475 (information supplied by Douglas Blackmore of Combe Martin). This is a remarkably fine example of a small manor house, little altered since the C19, and south-facing with a range of outbuildings to the south (qv). Listing NGR: SS5864747567