Whitcott Farmhouse

Whitcott Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating from the early 18th century, likely incorporating a mid-to-late 17th-century structure. It is built with a rendered façade, probably over cob and stone rubble, with some 19th-century red brick dressings to the rear. It has gable-ended scantle-slate roofs with a catslide extending over the outshut at the rear. The farmhouse features painted stone stacks with chamfered offsets, weatherings, and brick tops.

The original layout was a two-room, central-entrance plan, facing south, with external end stacks and a central staircase rising from the entrance lobby. A lower, one-roomed service end is set slightly back to the right, with an integral end stack. A continuous outshut runs along the rear. Later additions include a lean-to at the right-hand gable end and a two-storey outshut at the rear of the service end, likely dating to the 19th century.

The front of the farmhouse presents a symmetrical three-bay facade with 19th-century three-light wooden casement windows. The central entrance features a late 18th- or early 19th-century door with four beaded flush panels (the upper panels are partly glazed) contained within a pegged beaded frame. A 20th-century glazed concrete porch protects the doorway. The service end has likely 20th-century three-light wooden casement windows on both ground and first floors, and a 20th-century half-glazed door to the right. A boarded door is set into the front of the right-hand gable end’s lean-to addition. Two gabled dormers rise from the rear outshut, featuring 20th-century wooden casements with slate-hung sides. The outshut at the rear of the right-hand end has a 2-light wooden casement window on the first floor and a ground-floor doorway with a wooden lintel.

Inside, the left- and right-hand ground-floor rooms retain 17th-century chamfered cross beams. A segmental-arched recess exists in the rear wall of the left-hand ground-floor room, likely formerly a cupboard. The right-hand ground-floor room has an open fireplace with dressed sandstone jambs, an unchamfered wooden lintel (prepared to receive plaster), a slate hearth, and cooking irons. Two cupboards are built into the rear wall. An 18th-century four-panelled door with wrought-iron strap hinges is located at the rear of the right-hand room. Two early 18th-century doors lead from the entrance lobby to the left- and right-hand ground-floor rooms, each with six raised and fielded panels, H-L hinges, and moulded architraves. The first floor also has three early 18th-century doors, each with two raised and fielded panels. A square, leaded window with wrought-iron saddle bars provides borrowed light from the front first floor room to the top of the staircase. The ground-floor service room to the right has a slate floor, a bench along the left-hand wall, and a rough cross beam. A double fireplace is present to the right (the right-hand section likely a former smoking chamber), with a bread oven in the left-hand fireplace and an 18th-century beaded overmantel with bracketed mantelshelf. An old boarded door is sealed within a room to the left, and an arched recess is found within a rear wall. A rear door has a pegged frame, beaded sides, and chamfered tops.