MEM23756 - Stone Farmstead, Exford (Building)

Stone Farmstead is shown on the Tithe Map for Exford at SS 8652 3883. The group is labelled '30' and the accompanying Apportionment document describes it as a "Homestead and Court", owned by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Baronet and occupied by Mary Poole. It included the house at SS 8654 3879 (recorded separately under MSO6712) and various farm buildings scattered around a large pond to the northeast, at SS 8648 3884. Several of the buildings appear to still be extant, or incorporated into larger ranges of farm buildings; however, two buildings at SS 8650 3879 and SS 8649 3878 and a further building at SS 8647 3884 have since been removed from the site. In addition to this, the Tithe Map also shows enclosures to the north and east of the house, including walled structures labelled 27 and 28 and a more northerly area labelled 29. These are described respectively as "Garden", "Plantation by Garden" and "Garden". The farmstead had been subject to some rationalisation in the later 19th Century and by the time the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map was surveyed, a formal rectangular farmyard enclosed on all sides by building ranges had been created at SS 8651 3885. [1-4] The site was visited as part of the Exmoor Farmsteads survey in February 1997. This noted a "very good and complete square yard" of rubble buildings dating to the 19th Century, with slate roofs. This also had a large early 19th Century barn with shippon beneath and a big arch at one end, which was suggested to be the site of the water wheel (see MSO11278). Other ranges were added to the site in the later 19th Century, with further buildings noted to extend outside side the yard to the north and a "separate plain good single storey linhay" to the south, with scissor trusses. The whole was thought to form part of an 18th Century estate. [5]