Higher Thornham Farmhouse And Attached Farmbuildings

Higher Thornham Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from around the early 16th century, significantly remodelled in the early to mid 17th century, with minor 19th-century alterations. Constructed of rendered and colourwashed rubble and cob, it features a straw-thatched gabled roof and two brick-shafted stacks. The original plan was a 3-room and through-passage layout, with the lower end later converted into a farmbuilding. The hall and inner rooms were likely originally open to the roof. The 17th-century remodelling saw the insertion of floors in the hall and inner room, the construction of an axial stack backing onto the passage, and the rebuilding of the front walls of the hall and inner room to create a hall bay and a high-quality parlour with its own gable and stack, although this rebuilding may be a later alteration. A stair turret was added in the early to mid 17th century, providing access to the chambers above the hall. A further farmbuilding with a loft was added in the 18th century. In the 19th century, the inner room was partitioned to create a dairy, reducing the size of the parlour.

The interior retains many interesting features, including a flagstone floor in the through-passage and a doorway with a moulded head beam leading to the hall. The hall fireplace has a chamfered timber lintol with a 19th-century mantle over the oven. The hall also features chamfered cross-beams with fluted cyma stops and scratch-moulded joists. A Tudor arch ovolo-moulded doorframe leads to the stair turret, which has a pair of chamfered doorframes to the first-floor chambers. A plank and muntin screen divides the hall from the parlour, which was later subdivided into two rooms. The parlour contains moulded cross-beams, half-beams with two rolls and cyma moulds, and scratch-moulded joists; its fireplace has been blocked and replaced with a 19th-century cast-iron grate. The first floor is divided into two large rooms. Externally, the 19th-century windows are 2 and 3-light casements with horizontal glazing bars. The roof space is inaccessible, but the feet of a raised cruck truss are visible in the chamber above the hall, near the hall stack. This is a high-quality early to mid 17th-century remodelling of an open hall house, with particularly fine internal carpentry and minimal alteration since the 19th century.