High House

High House is a timber-framed house dating to the 17th century, with extensions added in the 20th century. The house is weatherboarded and has a roof with an axial stack at the left end. There are 17th-century stair outshuts to the rear of the left bay and a later outshut to the rear of the right bay; both form catslides with the main roof. A 20th-century lean-to porch sits to the rear right of the right outshut.

The front elevation has one 20th-century casement window on the ground floor and two on the first floor. A 20th-century gabled porch shelters the front door, which is positioned in front of the stack. The left side of the house is faced with 19th-century red brickwork in English bond up to first-floor level, with a large cement-rendered panel in the middle, apparently covering a former hearth to the left of the present stack and associated 17th-century brickwork. A large 20th-century dormer is located in the catslide roof of the rear right outshut.

Inside, the house has chamfered transverse beams with lamb's tongue stops, and plain joists of vertical section. There is an inserted trap in the floor near the front right corner, with 19th-century studding and nailed bracing to the left. The house features unjowled posts, heavy studding with primary straight bracing, all jointed and pegged. 19th-century brick nogging has replaced the ground-floor studding of the right wall. A straight central tie-beam has an inserted partition below. The framed doorway at the head of the stair outshut is original, suggesting the stair outshut is also original. The ground-floor hearth in the stack has 0.33-meter jambs and a seat recess in each; the left jamb has been repaired with 20th-century handmade bricks, and the remainder has been repaired and repointed. A blocked rectangular aperture at the rear, with an iron lintel, once housed a bread oven. The first-floor hearth has chamfered jambs and a segmental arch, originally plastered and retaining traces of original painted plaster and inscribed course lines. An early 19th-century cast-iron grate with an embossed design is present, along with a rectangular recessed panel above. Both hearths are original. These features, and the unusually high storeys, indicate that the house is the remaining portion of a 17th-century lobby-entrance house which originally extended one bay to the left of the stack. The left bay has been demolished, the stack rendered on the outside, and the spaces in front of and to the rear of it have been closed with 19th-century brickwork. Historical records, including a tithe map from 1846 and an Ordnance Survey map from 1873, show the house’s earlier footprint and subsequent truncation.