Hitts House and Front Walls, Wagon Stones and Continuations to East and West is a Grade II* listed building in the Dorset local planning authority area, England. First listed on 12 June 1953. House.

Hitts House and Front Walls, Wagon Stones and Continuations to East and West

WRENN ID
secret-granite-shade
Grade
II*
Local Planning Authority
Dorset
Constituency
West Dorset MP: Edward Morello (LD)
Country
England
Date first listed
12 June 1953
Type
House
Address
Hitts House and Front Walls, Wagon Stones and Continuations to East and West, 14, Whitcombe Road, Beaminster
OS grid reference
ST 482 010
Coordinates
50.80693, -2.73571
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

Hitts House is a detached house located on Whitcombe Road in Beaminster, dating from the late 17th century and the 19th century. The building features coursed lias stone walls topped with a moulded stone cornice and a clay tile roof with stone gable copings. It has renewed brick stacks at both gables and stands two storeys high with attics. The façade includes three windows with 3- and 4-light ovolo-stone mullions, iron casements with leaded lights, and tension bars with scroll terminals. There are dormers with 2-light casements and a central front door framed by stone moulded jambs and a very depressed-arch head. The door itself is wooden and has six panels, topped by a wooden shell-hood featuring a carved scallop shell and oak-leaf corners, supported by wooden brackets from around 1700.

Inside, the main staircase, located on the left side, is late 17th century, made of oak with turned balusters and a narrow beaded handrail. It has a square newel post with flat pyramidal caps. There is also a service staircase in the right gable wall that spirals half to each floor, leading up to the attic with wooden treads. The roof structure includes chamfered principals, chamfered cambered collar beams, and two sets of through-purlins from the 17th century. The house underwent early 19th-century remodelling, which included reeded door surrounds and the insertion of elliptical arches to the stairs and front corridor. A bow window is present on the rear wall.

The front walls and gate piers date from the 18th century, constructed of lias rubble on a stone plinth with stone copings that ramp at either end. The square ashlar gate piers feature moulded cornices and ball finials, with small iron gates. There are seven wagon stones leading to the lane. The listed walling extends approximately 40 meters east of the house, standing 12 feet high, made of rubble stone and stone-coped with slight ramping. The listed walls also continue to the west of the house along the street and turn up the back lane to the southwest for about 100 meters.

Local climate

Hitts House and Front Walls, Wagon Stones and Continuations to East and West receives an average of 810 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 52% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 71% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 26 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 71% of listed buildings. Of these, 10 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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