High Trees Farmhouse

This is a farmhouse dating from around the early 15th century, with significant rebuilding in the late 15th century and extensions in the late 16th century. Further remodelling took place in the 18th and 19th centuries. The house is timber frame, partially plastered, with a peg-tile roof and gabled cross-wings. A large brick lateral stack, built around 1600, is located on the side of the left cross-wing, featuring set-offs and diagonally set broached shafts. Another brick axial stack, with arched panels, is also present.

The original plan included an open hall, a screens passage, and a jettied high-end cross-wing to the south. A jettied service-end cross-wing, rebuilt in the late 15th century, projects to the north, with a later 16th-century kitchen wing at the rear (west) of the low end. A floor was likely inserted in the 17th century. In the late 17th or early 18th century, the hall was floored, and an axial stack was inserted at its low end, backing onto the passage. A later outshut was built on the inner south side of the rear wing.

The exterior presents a 2-storey, 1:2:1 bay facade. The gabled cross-wings have jettied first floors supported by curved brackets, along with bargeboards, finials, and pendants. Windows mostly comprise 19th-century 4:12 pane tripartite sashes and a 2:8:2 pane window on the first floor. A 20th-century gabled porch with a plank inner door is positioned to the right of the centre. The rear cross-wings are hipped, with a gablet on the right and a lower gable-ended wing to the left; the left-hand wing’s roof extends over the outshut. Various casements and 19th-century sash windows with glazing bars are also present.

Inside, the screens passage has four-centred arch doorways at the rear and two service doorways. Partitions have been removed between the service rooms and between the hall and the cross-wing parlour. The house retains chamfered ceiling beams with bar stops in the parlour, broad unchamfered joists in the service end, and chamfered joists in the rear wing. Exposed wall framing is visible in several areas, including the hall chamber with curved tension braces. The house features intact 2-bay crown-post roofs over the hall and cross-wings; the hall’s has smoke-blackened cross-quadrate crown-post, and the cross-wings have posts with longitudinal braces. The high-end cross-wing’s crown-post has broached stops. The rear wing has a smoke-blackened 4-bay crown-post roof with longitudinal braces.