Higher Poole Farmhouse

The farmhouse, likely dating to the early to mid-17th century, has later additions from the late 18th or early 19th century, with alterations in the mid-20th century. It is constructed of rendered cob with a dressed stone gable end, and uncoursed stone rubble for an addition. The rear and left-hand gable end are partly rendered, with the left-hand gable end clad in 20th-century corrugated-iron. The roof is gable-ended and covered with corrugated asbestos, formerly thatched. Stone stacks with weatherings, the tops rebuilt in 19th-century red brick, rise from the building.

The original plan was a two-room central-entrance arrangement facing southwest, with end stacks, one external to the right. A central entrance passage and a shallow rectangular projection to the front are visible. A probable unheated one-room addition was built to the left, with an entrance to the front. The right-hand doorway and entrance passage are believed to be 20th-century alterations, although the doorway may be original but was blocked and later reopened, potentially when the left-hand part with a new entrance was added. A one-room kitchen wing, likely dating from the early 19th century, was added to the rear of the central portion, with an external end stack. Lean-to additions were constructed to the left-hand gable end and at the rear of the left-hand end, along with a lean-to dairy to the northwest of the rear wing.

The building is two storeys high with one-storey lean-to additions. The front is asymmetrical, displaying three windows on the first floor and two on the ground floor; these are late 20th-century two-light wooden and metal casements. A 20th-century half-glazed door is set within a rendered gabled porch, located between the first and second windows from the right (centre of the original two-room range). An older front doorway exists to the left, with an early 19th-century six-panelled door—the lower two panels are side-beaded flush, the middle is raised, and the upper section is glazed. An external stack is visible on the right-hand gable end, featuring chamfered offsets. The rear kitchen wing has 20th-century casements. A lean-to bread oven sits at the rear gable end. The lean-to dairy adjacent to the kitchen wing has two-light wooden casements with wooden lintels, wrought-iron bars, and internal wooden shutters.

The central ground floor room contains a pair of 17th-century deep-chamfered cross beams with stepped runout stops. Cased beams are present in the right-hand ground-floor rooms. The kitchen has a plain cross beam.