In late September 2020 I had a walk up to the junction to Seaton to take some photos at the bottom of Harepath Hill. Whilst there I had a look at these farm buildings too.
Starting with the fabulous farmhouse, which is a thatched Devon Longhouse and a Grade II listed building, it's traditionally thought to date back to 1480 built by the Starr family who also owned Seaton Manor. The dating, however, is only confirmed to be circa 16th century with remodelling during the 18th. One of its three fireplaces inside has the date 1613 inscribed upon it.
The farmhouse was used until recently as Bed & Breakfast accommodation. It is now
on sale for a whopping £975,000! A little bit out of my price range methinks, lol.
Constructed with stone rubble it has a hipped roof with thatching and also a Tudor arched doorway. The end wall is roughcast with pilasters at each corner. There are also four anchor plates in a row, which are used to strengthen the wall and prevent it from bowing out.
Forming a quadrangle with the farmhouse and garden, the farm buildings were arranged around a cobbled courtyard consisting of the stables, silo, linhay, granary & root store, shippon and pillared barn. There were also peripheral buildings outside this arrangement of a pigsty, a cartshed and a derelict building which I think has since been demolished.
I wasn't able to ascertain whether these were still farm buildings but I came across a photo of the inner courtyard in Historic England Archive and they look like converted private dwellings. For this article I'm going by a survey produced by the Devonshire Association and the Listed Buildings Register before any renovations were made. They are all Grade II Listed as group value along with the farmhouse.
The house and garden are separted from the courtyard by a wall and you can just about see some of the garden in the photo above. This first building along the roadside is the stables, constructed circa 19th century with stone rubble and quoins using either Beer Stone or greensand. There would have been a hayloft on the upper storey but later on the ground floor was used as a milking parlour and dairy.
The windows are rather nice and look as if they were once original open spaces for airflow and now glazed over. However, there is nothing on the photos or drawings of the original building to show any windows at all on the rear wall, therefore they must have been added later during renovations undertaken in 2001. The frontage on the photo online looks quite similar to the original layout of doors and windows but they're now internally separated into individual dwellings.
The western gable did have a window at one time but it's since been blocked up. It also has a pair of inscribed stones with initials and dates; M R originally, but which has been altered to P S, and the date is 1811, which also appears to have been altered to 1871 when it was rebuilt after a fire in 1870.
Adjacent to that is the linhay and the inbetween space behind the wall (seen below) was where the silo was kept. The linhay has a frontage with weatherboarding, although it's no longer the original.
Used specifically in Devon and Somerset, the word Linhay is another name for a barn containing either animals or grains. Part of this one was also used for cider making, with an apple mill on the top floor and press below on the ground floor.
Looking through to the other side of the quadrangle is what was once the cart shed and a boiler & store room, seen below behind the gate.
Next along and opposite the stables is the pillar barn, the roof of which can be seen in the two photos above and one below, with its half hipped roof. Consisting of stone piers along the front and rear with openings between them, they were built using either local Beer Stone or greensand. Later, the openings were blocked up with masonry.
Next to that is the shippon, which isn't a name I'd heard before - despite being brought up in
the countryside - but it's another name for cow barn or cattle shed. I didn't get a photo of that or of the granary & root store in the corner between the shippon and the linhay, as I didn't venture into the courtyard due to the pandemic restrictions at that time.
However, I did find part of the shippon and granary store on a photo of the nearby corrugated house, seen below. It isn't brilliant as I had to enlarge it a lot, but on the far left of the photo are three rooftops. The one on the left is the granary, built circa 18th century; a small square building with a pyramidal roof topped by a ball finial. The smallest of the two on the right is what used to be the shippon with the end of the pillar barn behind it.
I found another two online photos in the English Heritage listing showing the granary, shippon and pillar barn in their renovated state. They look really good, actually. I thought the stables look a bit twee but the others are really well done. There are original external stone steps between the granary and linhay, leading to the top floor of the granary, and the stonework and weatherboard cladding look great. The granary is now an AirB&B, and the others are either residential or holiday lets.
I also came across a reference to the Rolle Estate, which owned the land the buildings are on, and possibly still does as the name for this little estate is now called Rolle Court.
And finally, a bit of the orchard behind the farmhouse, seen on the left below.
If you'd like to read more and see the illustrations and photos of the survey produced by the Devonshire Association, you can access the pdf via the url below. It's well worth a read and to see the layout of the buildings. :)
https://www.devonassoc.org.uk/special-publications/harepath-farm-1998.pdf
I was going to add links to the English Heritage photos but I can't find them at all. I don't know why, as I've put all the appropriate search words in, but they just aren't coming up again. Anyway, if I can I'll add any other photos later.
As I'm gradually getting stronger and able to walk a bit better, I might be able to go back and take my own photos to add - another one for the list! - but I've gone with what I have for now, just in case I can't manage it.
That's it for now. This one took a lot longer than I expected as there was such a lot of information. I'm not sure what's coming up next so that'll be a surprise for us all! Something a bit easier, hopefully, lol.
Meanwhile, I hope you all have a lovely Summer Solstice today. Cheers. :)
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