Ditchetts

Ditchetts is a house dating from the early 16th century, with later alterations in the late 16th or early 17th century and further additions in the 18th century. It is situated on the south side of Fore Street in Witheridge. The house is built of roughcast and pebbledashed walls, likely over a rubble core, and has a straw-thatched roof with a hip on the wing to the right. Brick stacks are located to the left and on the right return. Two 18th-century wings extend at right angles to the front, both with hipped slate roofs.

Originally an open hall house, a chamber was inserted over the right end, likely in the mid-16th century. In the late 16th or early 17th century, the hall was floored, creating a three-room plan. This features a large central room with an axial stack to the left side, a smaller, unheated room to the left, and a further small heated room to the right, with a rear corner fireplace. The front elevation is asymmetrical, with three windows, featuring three four-pane double-hung sashes, a two-light casement with glazing bars on the first floor to the extreme left, and a 20th-century casement on the ground floor to the right. A four-panelled door with a transom light is located between the second and third bays, and a further entrance has paired plank doors to the extreme left. The rear elevation has 19th-century windows.

The interior has been altered in the 18th and 19th centuries. The small room to the right hand has a corner fireplace with a wooden bressumer that is chamfered and has ogee stops. The two further fireplaces on the ground floor feature bressumers that are likely from the 18th century and are unchamfered. Other 18th-century features on the ground floor include doors and panelling. The kitchen in the wing to the rear includes an 18th-century cupboard and reused Gothic wainscotting.

The roof retains a complete jointed cruck truss over the centre of the house, with a heavy notched cranked collar, threaded diagonal ridge, adjacent common rafters, through purlins and battens. This is heavily smoke-blackened, along with remnants of lightly-blackened thatch. The roof over the right part of the house was replaced in the 18th century with simple joinery. The cruck truss is closed and plastered up to the apex, with remnants of colourwash, indicating the existence of a chamber over the higher end of the house.