Higham House

Higham House

This is a house probably dating from the mid-17th century, with alterations from the early period through to later times. It is built of gritstone with stone-flag roofs.

The building is a two-cell end-entry house, originally with a north outshut which has since been demolished. Later additions include a north outshut, and north and south porches.

The house stands to the west of Higham Hall and is enclosed on its east and west sides by later buildings. Its current front faces north. This elevation is two storeys high and constructed of squared rubble with dressed sills and lintels. A rendered gable stack stands at the left, probably rising from the stone cap of a smokehood. At the right is a single-storey outshut with a small lean-to porch set in the angle between them. The outshut contains a four-light casement window. To the left of this window is a straight vertical joint with quoins to its left. The porch is set back and has a 20th-century glazed door. To the left of the porch are a window with blocking below it and a small lobby window. Above the porch are a window and a blocked opening with a slender lintel. Above the outshut are a blocked small window and a small casement window. The small casement retains a recessed lintel with a stool for a mullion.

The south wall has a small central lean-to porch with a 20th-century door. Three first-floor windows are present, all with 20th-century squared surrounds. To the left of the porch is a four-light casement, also with squared surround. To the right is a four-light mullioned window with chamfered sill, lintel and central mullion, the outer mullions now lost. To its right is a fire window with a dressed and chamfered surround.

The end walls are obscured by adjacent buildings. The east wall is reported to contain a pointed-arch doorway which remains visible from within the adjacent house.

Internally, the cross-wall stands to the west of the current entrance. In the housebody is a chimney breast with a 20th-century fireplace and a square niche to its right. A 20th-century staircase rises to the east along the north wall, to a landing which intrudes below the housebody ceiling. The larger south window has a chamfered surround. The splayed north lobby-window surround is unplastered, while the south fire window surround is plastered. The cross-wall has a north-of-centre doorway with a small square niche to its right, giving access to the current kitchen.

The lintel of this doorway is exposed in the kitchen, and another niche exists in the dividing wall to the right (south) of the door. The south wall of the kitchen is lined with 20th-century fittings below the window. At the south end of the west wall stands a plastered chimneybreast with a Rayburn stove in the blocked fireplace. This chimneybreast carries a notable decorative plaster frieze. The upper panel displays a central lion mask flanked by symmetrical pairs of basilisks facing away from each other, their tails entwined with foliage. This design is identical to the frieze in the upper south-west chamber at Greenhead Manor, Reedley. Below is a vine scroll, slightly shorter than the upper frieze. A simple border surrounds and divides the two elements, though the upper border has been lost. The chimneybreast widens to the right over stone corbels. In the north wall is a splayed doorway leading into the outshut. This opening reveals exposed stonework in the outshut, showing the lintel and jambs of a former mullioned window, with its sill reused as the lower east jamb of the doorway. In the east wall of the outshut is a blocked former window with chamfered surround. A similar window, facing north, stands in the south-east corner with a central iron bar.

The external doorway visible in the south porch has a squared surround with tooled margin and a central band of diagonal grooves.

Upstairs, to the east of the staircase, is a roof truss made of split logs with curved struts and a line of stave holes on the west face of the tie-beam, which at its south end rests on a corbel. The truss carries two side purlins and a ridge purlin; the lower side purlins are 20th-century additions. Some hewn common rafters are visible in the roofspace. The western chamber has a chimneybreast with plaster frieze depicting ibexes, two-handled urns disgorging foliage with jelly-mould and star flowers and fruit, and crude fleurs-de-lys. The frieze has a moulded border, partly missing at the top, and has been defaced of a central motif. Above the frieze the chimneybreast is shouldered and angled towards the ridge. There is a very low fireplace with chamfered stone surround, altered at the top.