Orchard House And The Homestead

Orchard House and The Homestead are two houses, one dating back to 1600, with the other likely built in the late 18th or early 19th century. The houses are constructed of coursed rubble walls and have tiled, thatched, and pantiled gable ended roofs. They feature brick stacks on the right and on a projecting front gabled wing. The houses are two storeys and one-and-a-half storeys high, with an irregular arrangement of windows. The windows are 20th-century casements, some with full glazing bars and others with horizontal glazing bars, and are topped with wooden lintels. The doors are also 20th-century. Interior features, as recorded by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (RCHM), include fireplaces with stone jambs and chamfered timber bressummers, and two stop-chamfered ceiling beams with run-out stops. These details are documented further in the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Dorset, volume IV, page 17, number 3.