Lower Wick Farmhouse

Farmhouse, formerly known as Moorswick, dating from the late 15th to early 16th century with major improvements in the later 16th and 17th centuries, and 19th-century extensions. The building is constructed of local stone and flint rubble with some cob facing. The hall stack is of stone rubble with a stone rubble chimneyshaft, whilst the other stacks are 19th and 20th-century brick insertions. The roof is thatched.

The house follows a 4-room-and-through-passage plan, facing south-east and built down the hillslope. At the uphill, north-east end is the former inner room, used as a dairy or buttery, which is terraced into the hillslope with a 20th-century gable-end stack insertion. Adjacent is the hall, which has an axial stack backing onto the passage with a newel stair rising behind it against the rear wall. The passage rear doorway is now blocked. Below the passage are two unheated service rooms, the south-western one being a 19th-century extension. A 19th-century kitchen outshot has been added to the rear of the first service room, with a lower end stack. Smoke-blackened roof timbers prove that the original house was open to the roof from end to end, heated by an open hearth fire, and divided by low partition screens.

In the early to mid-16th century, a first floor chamber was built over the inner room dairy/buttery. In the mid or late 16th century, the hall stack was inserted, probably alongside a lower end or passage chamber. The passage and service end were rebuilt and enlarged in the mid-17th century, this section being slightly wider than the rest. The hall was floored over in the mid-17th century. The 19th-century kitchen and extra service room were later additions.

The main house is two storeys high. The exterior features an irregular 5-window front of 20th-century casements, most with diamond lead effect. The passage front doorway is roughly central and contains a 20th-century part-glazed door behind a contemporary slate-roofed porch. Another doorway with a similar porch is located at the left end. Above the hall stack oven housing is a Westminster Insurance Plaque dated 1727. The roof is gable-ended to the right and hipped to the left.

Internally, the passage lower screen has narrow close-set studs. The crossbeam in the service end room is chamfered with exaggerated scroll stops, as is a similar axial beam in the hall—both features dating to the mid-17th century. The hall fireplace is of Beerstone ashlar with an oak lintel and chamfered surround with the remains of pyramid stops. At the upper end of the hall is a large framed partition, possibly originally a low partition screen, containing a blocked doorway with a shaped head. The first floor partition above is secondary. The inner room has a chamfered and step-stopped axial beam. The roof over the passage, hall, and inner room is carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses, all timbers sooted from the original open hearth fire. The first floor partition over the upper end of the hall is smoke-blackened on the hall side only.

Lower Wick Farmhouse forms a group with its farmbuildings, which are ranged around a cobbled farmyard, and with other listed houses in the hamlet of Wick.