Lower House Including Rear Garden Walls

Lower House is a farmhouse of mid to late 16th-century date, probably with earlier origins. It underwent major improvements during the late 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries, with some early 19th-century modernisation. The building is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks topped with 19th and 20th-century brick, and a thatch roof.

The house follows an L-plan with the main block facing north-west, derived from a 3-room-and-through-passage plan. At the south-west end is a lower end parlour with a projecting gable-end stack. Adjacent to it is an entrance hall created by enlarging the former passage in the early or mid-17th century, with a projecting stair-turret to the rear. The dining room, which is the former hall, contains an axial stack backing onto the former passage. At the north-eastern end is an unheated inner room with a secondary service passage running through from front to rear. A rear block projects at right angles behind the left end, containing the kitchen with an axial stack backing onto a cellar. The cellar has an integral outshot on the outer side.

The main block was possibly built as a late medieval open hall house, though no physical evidence survives. The earliest datable feature is probably the hall fireplace, though if this is 16th-century its lintel was replaced in the mid-17th century when a first floor fireplace was added. The passage and lower end were rebuilt in the early or mid-17th century. The kitchen block was added in the mid-17th century, and the hall was floored over around the same time. The main block roof over the hall and inner room was also renewed at this period. The house was refurbished in the late 17th to early 18th century and again in the early 19th century.

The house is two storeys high. The exterior presents an irregular five-window front incorporating windows from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The right two-window section at the parlour end has early 19th-century tripartite sashes containing central 9-pane sashes to the first floor and 12-pane sashes to the ground floor. Other front windows contain rectangular panes of leaded glass. The first floor left end window is a 17th-century oak 3-light window with ovolo-moulded mullions. An adjacent window is a late 17th to early 18th-century oak flat-faced mullion window, unusually retaining a mid-17th-century moulded oak hoodmould. Other windows are 18th and 19th-century casements. Thatch eyebrows overhang the first floor windows. The entrance hall doorway, positioned right of centre, contains an early 19th-century 6-panel door with contemporary panelled reveals and a flat-roofed porch with moulded entablature, now supported on 20th-century posts. Another early 19th-century 6-panel door opens to the service passage further left. The roof is gable-ended to the right and hipped to the left.

On the north-east side facing the farmyard is a good three-window section of early oak-framed windows mostly containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The inner room (dairy or buttery) at the right end has an unglazed mid-17th-century window with flat-faced mullions featuring internal chamfers; one mullion, replaced in the early 18th century, has an internal ogee moulding. The window retains internal wooden shutters. The ground floor left window to the kitchen is a mid-17th-century 4-light window with ovolo-moulded mullions and moulded oak hoodmould. The centre first floor window is a similar 3-light window without the hoodmould, flanked by late 17th to early 18th-century flat-faced mullion windows. Mid-17th-century and late 17th to early 18th-century oak windows appear on the other sides, including on the rear block cellar. The rear window of the parlour is probably mid-19th-century, a projecting bay window containing French windows with glazing bars and margin panes. At the back of the passage stands a probably 17th-century gabled two-storey porch, its upper room now supported on 19th-century cast iron slender posts. The 6-panel door behind is also 19th-century but is flanked by possibly 17th-century half-engaged bulbous piers.

The interior demonstrates high quality craftsmanship from all major building phases. No carpentry is exposed in the entrance hall and parlour, where joinery detail is all early 19th-century, except for part of an earlier chamfered oak lintel exposed over the parlour fireplace. The main stair is early 19th-century with stick balusters, believed to be a rebuild of a late 17th to early 18th-century stair. The hall fireplace is partly blocked but exposes limestone ashlar jambs and a chamfered and scroll-stopped oak lintel. The hall crossbeam is chamfered with the remains of bar-scroll stops. The kitchen is a large room containing two crossbeams; one is a replacement, but the other is chamfered with scroll stops. The kitchen fireplace is blocked but its large size and projecting oven housing are evident. In the cellar, a chamfered and scroll-stopped crossbeam rests on a timber-framed partition between the main room and the integral outshot. The roof here is of probably late 17th to early 18th-century A-frame trusses with spiked lap-jointed collars, with principals continuing over the lean-to outshot.

The first floor rooms of the main house show mostly late 18th to early 19th-century joinery. The partitions around the main stair landing are mostly bolection-moulded panelling with a box cornice, though they also incorporate sections of earlier panelling carved with strapwork patterns. The frieze includes badges, mostly acanthus leaves but one apparently representing three bobbins. The parlour chamber has a fine late 17th to early 18th-century chimneypiece. Many doors, cupboards and similar features throughout the house, particularly on the first floor, date to the late 17th to early 18th century.

The roof structure comprises two phases, both 17th-century, both carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. The earliest section, over the entrance hall and parlour, has trusses with pegged dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collars. The remainder of the main block roof and that over the kitchen is probably mid-17th-century, with trusses apparently built without collars and later lap-jointed collars nailed onto them. The entire roof structure is clean, though the apex of the kitchen roof is charred from a 20th-century lightning strike.

The rear garden is enclosed by a tall wall of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, mostly with tile coping but some slate, dating to the 17th or 18th century.

Lower House, together with its garden walls, granary, and stables, forms an attractive group. The house itself is a very well-preserved multi-phase building, unusual in retaining so many 17th and early 18th-century oak windows.