Higher Pitt Farmhouse

Farmhouse. It likely originated in the early to mid 16th century, with remodelling occurring in the late 16th and early to mid 17th centuries. Constructed from rendered stone and cob, it features two ridge stacks, one brick on the left and one rendered on the right, as well as a tall front lateral hall stack. The original layout was a three-room-and-through-passage plan, formerly an open hall house, with a former outbuilding at the left end of the inner room incorporated into the living space. Notably, the stack that heats the lower end backs onto the through-passage. A stair turret is located at the rear of the inner room, and a secondary staircase is off the right rear end of the through-passage. The building has two storeys and a six-window front. Most windows are 20th-century 2-light casements. A hall window is built out with a slate lean-to roof, sheltering a 4-panelled door. A 20th-century door has been inserted at the left end. A dairy outshut is at the rear. Inside, features include a chamfered axial beam with hollow step stops, an ovolo-moulded fireplace lintel with scroll stops, and a double creamery to the rear wall of the lower end. The hall has two cross ceiling beams, the one at the lower end chamfered on one side facing the upper end. A beam stub above the chamfered fireplace lintel, directly beneath the cross beam, suggests a possible former jetty. A hollow step-stopped bressumer is present at the upper end of the hall. Brick-lined ovens are in both the lower end and hall fireplaces. A chamfered cross beam and bressumer are in the inner room and the former outbuilding. The solid walls rise to the apex of the roof between the lower end and through-passage, the hall and inner room, and the inner room and former outbuilding. The lower end has a 20th-century roof structure, but its stack position and fireplace lintel suggest a substantial 17th-century rebuild. Above the hall and inner room are two raised cruck trusses; the truss over the hall is entirely smoke-blackened, while the truss over the inner room is clean. Both originally carried two tiers of purlins. The truss over the former outbuilding is of a similar date but is completely charred due to a fire. A stair turret servicing the chamber over the inner room, combined with the roof structure, indicates the house was built during a transitional period, the inner room ceiled from the outset, the hall initially open to the roof, the lower end potentially jettied, the hall ceiled in the late 16th century, and the lower service end largely rebuilt in the 17th century.