Higher Wyke Farmhouse

Higher Wyke Farmhouse

A farmhouse now no longer in use, located on Wyke Lane in Axminster. The building represents an early-to-mid 17th-century reconstruction and enlargement of an earlier house, subsequently remodelled around the early 19th century.

The external walls are constructed from cob, reconstructed in stone rubble with dressed stone quoins and footings. The gable-ended roofs were originally thatched but have been reclad in corrugated-iron sheets. A gable-end stone stack with a short brick shaft is present, alongside a truncated stone lateral stack.

The house follows a three-room-and-through-passage plan. The parlour occupies the right (east) end and contains a fireplace in the gable-end stack. The central bay is unheated and was formerly divided by an axial partition into two service rooms with doorways leading to the kitchen at the left (west) end. The kitchen is heated by a large fireplace in a lateral stack at the rear, which includes an oven. Behind the kitchen stands a wing, now truncated and reduced to a single room with direct entry on the west side.

Early 19th-century remodelling included insertion of an axial partition into the parlour at the east end, raising and reconstructing the roof above, and building an outshut at the west end. The partitions dividing the unheated central room have since been removed.

The exterior presents two storeys with an asymmetrical three-window south front, featuring 19th-century two- and three-light casements and a through-passage doorway to the right of centre with a plank door. The east gable end has a large stack projecting on the right. The rear north elevation displays a through-passage doorway at its centre, framed with heavy chamfered timber and a Tudor arch head with mason's mitres and a plank door. To the right is a two-light chamfered timber window with mason's mitres; above stands cob wall with a single light chamfered timber window frame featuring carpenter's mitres. The left side shows blind stone wall, while the truncated wing on the right retains an exposed stud-and-wattle-and-daub first floor wall above a later rubble wall at ground level. The west side of the wing has a doorway with heavy chamfered timber frame and Tudor arch with plank door, alongside a large outshut with a lean-to roof.

The interior remains largely unaltered since the 19th century and retains stone flag floors throughout. The parlour at the east end features a deeply chamfered cross-beam with replaced ends, broad joists that are ceiled, and a blocked fireplace on the end wall. An inserted axial stone rubble wall creates a smaller back room containing an early 19th-century cupboard with a panelled door. The through-passage preserves remains of plank-and-muntin screen on the east side and the head-beam of a plank-and-muntin screen on the west side. The unheated central bay retains a plank-and-muntin screen on the west side with evidence of two doorways; the central axial partition has been removed. The lower west room (kitchen) contains deeply chamfered cross-beams, one with hollow-step stops, and a large lateral fireplace with dressed stone jambs, a rough cambered bressumer, and an oven. The room in the rear wing features a chamfered cross-beam with a hollow-step stop at one end and broad joists. The attic chambers are ceiled; the west chamber contains a small fireplace in the lateral stack with a chamfered cambered bressumer and a doorway to the rear wing with a chamfered wooden frame featuring a cambered head.

The main range roof spans two to three bays and incorporates three side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with mortice-and-tenoned cambered collars, two tiers of trenched purlins, and a diagonally-set trenched ridgepiece. The west end truss is partly rebuilt with its collar removed, whilst the east end bay roof was raised and rebuilt with straight principals. A similar 17th-century jointed cruck truss roof spans the rear wing. Common rafters are largely intact with some battens remaining.

This building represents a good example of an early-to-mid 17th-century unheated central room plan house, remodelled around the early 19th century with minimal subsequent alteration.