Pitson Farmhouse

Pitson Farmhouse is a house, formerly a farmhouse, with origins in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, thoroughly refurbished and enlarged in the early 17th century. It is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble chimneys topped with 20th-century brick. One chimney is an early 17th-century stone ashlar and rubble shaft. The roof is thatched.

The building is L-shaped, with the main block facing east-north-east. It follows a 3-room-and-through-passage plan with the inner room at the southern end. The service end room contains a large end kitchen stack with oven projection, and the hall has a projecting front lateral stack with a winder stair alongside on the front. The inner room has an end stack. Behind the inner room is a parlour block projecting at right angles, which contains a winder stair off the back of the hall and an inserted rear end stack. Evidence indicates the main block once continued beyond the service end kitchen as a barn, though this section has been demolished. An outshot is attached to the rear of the service end kitchen.

The main house is 2 storeys with an irregular 4-window front featuring 19th and 20th-century replacement casements, most with glazing bars. The window over the front passage doorway contains rectangular panes of leaded glass. A late 19th-century door hangs in the front passage doorway, and a 20th-century door has been inserted at the left end into the service end kitchen.

The hall stack projects forward immediately to the right of the front passage door. It is built of coursed small blocks of local brown-coloured conglomerate sandstone with a hollow chamfered Beerstone plinth, weathered offsets, and a tall double chimney shaft with large cream-coloured Beerstone quoins. The small fire window on its right side has a Beerstone frame. This stack has been extended a short distance with 20th-century brick. The roof is gable-ended to the left and hipped to the right.

On the right return wall, there is an early 17th-century oak 4-light window frame with ovolo-moulded mullions at first floor level serving the rear block. It contains an iron casement and rectangular panes of leaded glass. The rear block roof is gable-ended. The left end wall of the front block's gable extends slightly beyond the present end wall on a side-pegged jointed cruck identical to those inside, indicating the early 17th-century building once extended further in this direction.

The rear of the service end kitchen is an outshot built of brick and rubble with a corrugated asbestos lean-to roof, possibly a rebuilding of an earlier taller structure, as indicated by a blocked first floor doorway.

The only original interior feature is the truss over the upper end of the passage. The lower part is plastered over but is apparently a true or jointed cruck truss, with an apex indicating a late 15th or early 16th-century date; a yoke holding the principals either side of the slot for a square set ridge (Alcock's apex type H). It is heavily smoke-blackened on both sides from an open hearth fire. The infill is later, probably mid-16th century, being sooted only on the hall side. Apart from the outside cob walls, the rest of the structure and the rear block date from the massive early 17th-century refurbishment.

In the through passage, the partitions either side are plastered, although that on the hall side is reported to be 19th-century brick. The service end kitchen has a soffit-chamfered and scroll-stopped crossbeam, and although the kitchen fireplace has been reduced, its massive soffit-chamfered oak lintel remains. The oven here is 19th century.

The hall has a 3-bay ceiling. The cross and half beams have broad soffit chamfers and unusual bar-roll-scroll stops. The fireplace is Beerstone ashlar, where not rebuilt with 19th and 20th-century brick, with an oak lintel and chamfered surround. The lintel also has a soffit-chamfered cornice.

The upper end crosswall between hall and inner room is said to be built of cob and brick. The inner room shows no carpentry detail and the fireplace is a 20th-century grate.

The rear block was originally divided by an axial partition according to the stops on the crossbeam. A narrow strip on the northern side was apparently divided off, housing a small lobby and winder stair. The beam here is soffit-chamfered with scroll stops. Over the larger room the beam is soffit-chamfered with the same stops as those used in the hall, indicating this was a room of high status, most likely a parlour. The fireplace is blocked.

On the first floor, the main partitions are probably 17th century. The inner room chamber is larger than the inner room below, though this was not an internal jetty; the partition was erected when the hall was floored. The divided shaft of the hall stack suggests a 17th-century fireplace to the hall chamber, but if so it is blocked.

Apart from the late 15th or early 16th-century truss, the roof throughout is carried on early 17th-century side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with pegged and shaped lap-jointed collars, visible including one from the demolished barn now exposed on the northern end.

Pitson is an attractive and interesting farmhouse. Despite the major early 17th-century refurbishment, the house retains its late medieval plan form.