Source/Archive record SEM8402 - Historic buildings assessment and recording at Throat Farmhouse, Luxborough, Somerset

This report aims to provide an historical and architectural assessment and record of Throat Farm, Luxborough.The property consists of the house, an open barn to the south, 8 acres of paddock and 17 acres of woodland. The house is not listed, but is defined as an un-designated heritage asset by Exmoor National Park Authority by virtue of its 19th Century dating and retention of the majority of its historic character and appearance. The work consisted of a site visit to assess the standing fabric of the house and compile a photographic record and visits to the Somerset Heritage Centre. Throat is a shrunken farm site, representing a small farmstead, possibly comprising several buildings in the later medieval and early modern period. From the late 18th century it declined, in the sense that the land (along with that of several other similar small farms nearby) was absorbed by the larger farm of Westcott to the east, and the buildings were put to other purposes, in the case of this house as subsidiary farm accommodation. This may coincide with the rebuilding of the house as two cottages to a ‘mirror image’ plan, or this event may have occurred at a slightly earlier date (which raises the question of whether some earlier amalgamation had occurred). It is certain to post-date 1716 however as the detailed inventory of that year, unequivocally identified as applying to Throat, is clearly describing a building of different form to that of the standing building. On balance it would seem best to stick with the simplest explanation: that the rebuilding as two dwellings coincided with the reduction in status from independent farm to labourers’ cottages somewhere in the years around 1800. The surviving building therefore has significance as an example of a later 18th or early 19th century pair of estate cottages, giving evidence (inasmuch as it survives) of what was considered necessary in dwellings of this size and status at the time; and which was subsequently modified through later 19th and 20th century refurbishments. The surviving fabric of the house demonstrates essentially two phases of construction: first construction as a pair of two-storey cottages plus the northern single-storey outshut in the later 18th century (on the site of an earlier house, probably of later medieval or 16th century date); and a major late 20th century refurbishment (c.1987–1993) which saw the conversion of the two cottages into a single dwelling with associated landscaping works to form the rear ‘drang’. A possible additional phase of refurbishment in the late 19th century (involving a new slate roof and refenestration), has left little trace in the fabric, but is recorded in the photograph of 1976, as well as implied by what we know of the general history of the Chargot estate at the time. The late 20th century phase involved a major refurbishment of the building. The result is that little of historic interest survives in the interior with the exception of the chimney stack with back-to back fireplaces and the remains of truncated bread ovens in their northern reveals.