High Whitaker Farmhouse

SD 83 NW IGHTENHILL (off) BARROWFORD ROAD North Town

2/53 High Whitaker Farmhouse - - II

Wing of small manor house, probably earlier C16, altered, now farmhouse. Coursed sandstone blocks of irregular size with some quoins, slate roof with overhanging eaves and ridge chimney stack. Rectangular plan on north-south axis, modern addition on west side (probable position of original hall range). Two storeys, addition on west single storey, set back; externally the principal features of interest are 2 mullioned windows with round-headed lights and hollow spandrels, and 2 doorways on the east side: south gable wall has a ground floor window of 9 recessed lights with chamfered jambs and sill (flat head probably rebuilt), east side wall has a similar 3-light window to the front bay, doorways to the 2nd and 3rd bays with Tudor-arched heads crudely undercut in heavy lintels, and massive jambstones (the first of these now protected by a stone porch). Interior: now unequally partitioned into 3 but probably originally 2 rooms; 4 moulded stone corbels in the west wall, 3 in the east and one at the north end; back-to-back stone fireplaces in the partition wall between the 2nd and 3rd bays, and apparently the remains of an earlier and larger fireplace in the west wall. History: property of Whitaker family in C16 (Reference: VCH Lancs vol. 5, p.493).

Listing NGR: SD8008235157