Higher Holbrook

Higher Holbrook is a house that was formerly a farmhouse, dating from the early 17th century with late 17th-century refurbishment and late 19th-century modernisation. The barn was rebuilt around 1980.

The main walls are of plastered cob on rubble footings. The late 17th-century stair and dairy extension are of brick, and part of the rear block was rebuilt with late 17th-century brick-nogged timber framing. Stone rubble stacks are topped with late 19th-century brick chimney shafts. The roof is thatch, replaced with tile over the former barn.

The building is L-shaped with the main block facing south-west and having a 3-room and cross-passage plan. The inner room at the left (north-western) end has a slightly projecting end stack. The hall has a front projecting lateral stack and the service end room has a rear lateral stack. Both passage partitions have been removed. A contemporary 3-room rear block stands at right angles to the rear of the service end room, although its front partition has now been removed. The rear block fireplace, which backed onto the service end fireplace, was rebuilt with late 19th-century brick. A stair turret in the angle of the two wings blocks the rear of the passage. A late 17th-century extension to the rear of the inner room, overlapping the hall, houses the main stair and a dairy. A former barn at right angles to the right (south-eastern) side of the rear block was rebuilt as a large parlour around 1980.

The main house is two storeys with an irregular 4-window front of circa 1984 casements with glazing bars. The ground floor left (inner room) has contemporary French windows. All ground floor windows have low segmental arches suggesting brick embrasures. The front doorway lies right of centre and contains a late 19th-century 4-panel door and overlight with glazing bars, sheltered behind a 20th-century hipped and thatched porch. The roof is gable-ended to the left and hipped to the right as it returns along the rear block.

The outer (south-eastern) side of the rear block has an irregular 3-window front of 20th-century casements, mostly with glazing bars and a contemporary central door. Internally, there is a blocked late 17th-century oak 3-light window with flat-faced mullions and internal ogee mouldings. The rear end of the rear block has a 17th-century 7-light oak framed window with chamfered mullions and iron glazing bars, now reduced to 3-lights by removal of alternate mullions. Above are 2 19th-century horizontal-sliding sashes under the half-hipped end of the roof. On the inner side of the rear block the roof extends to form a pentice, where there is another 17th-century 4-light oak window frame with chamfered mullions and a timber-framed first floor.

Interior: The structure is essentially early 17th-century. The hall is ceiled by a series of upended joists thought to be original. It has a red conglomerate ashlar fireplace with a soffit-chamfered and scroll-stopped oak lintel. The rear wall has a late 17th-century cupboard with shaped shelves but missing its doors. The inner room shows only its late 19th-century finish. The service end room also has an upended joist ceiling, with joists that are scratch-moulded. The fireplace here is limestone ashlar with an oak lintel that is soffit-chamfered with scroll stops and rests on oak pads. It has curious blockings around the sides and rear and hollows carved or worn on the chamfered sides, all of unknown function. In the rear block the kitchen fireplace is of late 19th-century brick, and all 17th-century features are hidden by 19th-century plaster.

The winder stair to the rear of the passage is probably late 17th-century, as it rises from the corridor between rear and front blocks rather than from the cross passage. The late 17th-century main stair rises from the rear of the hall at its upper end. It is an open well stair with closed string, square newel posts, moulded flat handrail and turned balusters. Although some of the first floor crosswalls are probably early 17th-century, the layout was adapted in the late 17th century and most joinery detail is also late 17th-century. There are lobbies on both stair heads and a corridor between. Most doors on this level are 2-panel and many are still hung on H-L hinges.

The roof structure is early 17th-century and intact throughout both wings, consisting of A-frame trusses with low pegged lap-jointed collars to the main front wing and similar trusses with higher collars to the rear wing. The trusses have carpenters' assembly marks. The barn, though rebuilt, reuses its original 17th-century truss members in the present roof.

This is a well-preserved 17th-century house with an unusual layout and good late 17th-century added detail.