Middle Pitt Farmhouse

Middle Pitt Farmhouse

Farmhouse, now divided into 2 cottages. The building dates from the early 17th century, probably with an earlier core, and underwent late 17th to early 18th-century modernisation, a 19th-century extension, and mid-20th-century alterations when it was converted into two dwellings.

The house is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble chimneys topped with 19th and 20th-century brick. The roof is slate, replacing earlier thatch. The building faces south and is set down a gentle hillslope.

The original plan is a five-room-and-through-passage layout. At the uphill right (east) end sits the inner room parlour with a projecting gable-end stack. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the former passage. Below the passage on the left are the first service end room (which has a projecting rear lateral stack and probably served as the kitchen in the 17th century) and a small unheated room, likely originally a dairy. At the far left end is another unheated room, probably once an agricultural store with an unusually high ceiling that may have been originally open to the roof. A single-room unheated extension at right angles to the main block extends to the rear of the parlour; this is a 19th-century addition. Until the mid-20th century, a newel stair turret projected from the rear of the hall near the passage. The house was probably floored from the beginning, despite its through-passage layout suggesting earlier origins.

The exterior presents an irregular five-window front with mid-20th-century casements without glazing bars. The passage doorway is roughly central and now contains a 20th-century door with contemporary porch. The right cottage has a 20th-century doorway inserted into the hall, and the left cottage has a doorway into the end room; both contain 20th-century doors. The roof is gable-ended, descending in pitch from right to left, with visible evidence of wall raising to accommodate the lower pitch of the replacement slate roof.

Interior features of the left (west) cottage include a partial oak plank-and-muntin screen exposed between the dairy and heated service end room. Both these rooms contain soffit-chamfered and step-stopped beams; the service end room has a crossbeam, whilst the dairy has an axial beam with one end cut through for the present stair. The service end fireplace is blocked, but part of its soffit-chamfered oak lintel remains visible. The chambers above contain a couple of late 17th to early 18th-century fielded two-panel doors.

The right (east) cottage occupies the original principal rooms and displays higher-quality 17th-century carpentry detail. The partition between hall and parlour is a tall oak plank-and-muntin screen. The muntins of this screen and the crossbeams in hall and parlour are chamfered with bar run-out stops. The large hall fireplace is stone rubble with a soffit-chamfered and step-stopped oak lintel, with a miniature version in the chamber above. The parlour fireplace oak lintel features a chamfered low Tudor arch. The chamber above includes a blocked two-light oak-framed window with chamfered mullion. The roof structure of the main block is original throughout and is carried on a series of side-pegged jointed cruck trusses, all of which are clean.