Ninnis Farmhouse And Adjoining Gate Piers, Mounting Block And Front Garden Walls

Ninnis Farmhouse is a building of probable 17th-century origin, extensively remodelled in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is constructed of painted rubble, partly stuccoed to the front, with slate sills and granite lintels, and has a steep wheat-reed thatched roof that sweeps slightly lower to the rear. Brick chimneys rise over the gable ends, with a stone rubble stack on the left-hand side. The building has an overall T-shaped plan, featuring three rooms along the front and a later service wing at right angles to the rear. The original plan may have been a three-room arrangement with a through passage, but the front section is now a two-room house on the left and a one-room plan cottage on the right. The left-hand room, likely a kitchen, is heated by a large gable stack. The right-hand room of the house appears unheated and may have originally been the hall, heated by a rear lateral stack which was later removed or rendered obsolete in the late 18th century when the rear wing was built, converting the hall into a central, unheated service room. The cottage on the right was probably the original inner room or parlour, converted to a self-contained house around the early 19th century, as evidenced by alterations to the front wall.

The east front is an irregular five-window arrangement; the position of the first-floor windows likely represents an 18th-century remodelling, possibly with a slight raising of the eaves at the same time. The front is now stuccoed, with a three-window arrangement to the left and a two-window painted-rubble arrangement to the right. The ground-floor openings are irregularly spaced and do not align with the more regularly spaced first-floor windows. From the left, they consist of a wide window, a doorway (probably original), a window, a narrow window, and a doorway with a small adjoining window. The original parlour window was situated between the ground-floor openings of the present cottage. The windows are predominantly 20th-century six-pane horned sashes, and the doors are also 20th-century. A large 20th-century conservatory porch now fronts the main doorway. Reused in the rear wing is a piece of dressed granite with a chamfer.

Adjoining the left-hand side of the farmhouse is a dressed granite grid stile with a granite ashlar wall. A farmyard gateway is located to the left of the stile, marked by square-on-plan, round-headed granite gate piers. The left-hand gate pier is integrated with a dressed granite and granite rubble mounting block, now featuring a rear ramp; this may have been used as a milk stand for churns in the 20th century. The front garden walls are of slurried rubble, with two gateways that also have square-on-plan dressed granite gate piers. A 19th-century wrought iron gate is present at the left-hand gateway. Ninnis Farmhouse is one of only two houses remaining in the parish with a thatched roof and demonstrates an interesting plan development over time, representing group value.