Litchaton Farmhouse With Shippon And Barn Adjoining To East And Front Garden Walls Adjoining To South

Litchaton Farmhouse is a probable early 18th century house with an adjoining shippon, a barn, and front garden walls, situated on Litchaton Hill near North Molton. The property likely incorporates elements of an earlier structure, with minor alterations and additions around 1900, and a barn built in the mid to late 19th century, modified in the late 20th century.

The house and shippon are constructed of dressed sandstone, of near-ashlar quality, and rendered on the rear elevation, likely over cob. A left-hand extension is constructed of red brick. The roof is covered with scantle-slate tiles, gabled to the right and half-hipped to the left. The building features stone square stacks with weatherings and coved caps, including a brick stack dating from around 1900. The barn is built of uncoursed stone rubble and cob, partly rebuilt with rendered concrete blockwork, and has a gable-ended Welsh slate roof and a hipped roof over a horse-engine house.

Originally, the house was a two-room, central-entrance plan facing south, with axial end stacks and a central gabled porch. A one-room service wing exists to the left and the shippon to the right. The left-hand end of the house was extended and probably rebuilt in approximately 1900, with alterations to the roof over this section at the same time. A lean-to roof addition, with an external end stack, was also added. The barn is positioned to the right, adjoining at a right angle to the front of the shippon, and contains a polygonal-ended horse-engine house on its right (east) side.

The symmetrical front of the house features a central five-bay facade; the ground floor contains two blocked windows with visible straight joints and wooden lintels, with a single inserted window between them, likely dating to the late 18th or early 19th century. The house has C20 two-light metal casements in original openings, each with wooden lintels and cills. A boarded door, set within a pegged frame, stands within a 18th-century stone porch featuring shaped jambs, a rendered gable, and side benches. The service wing to the left has C19 or C20 two-light wooden casements to each floor, each protected by a wooden lintel. The shippon has a plinth, a boarded loft door to the right, a ground-floor window to the right with a wooden lintel, and a boarded door to the left, also with a wooden lintel.

The house's interior, though not inspected, contains open stone fireplaces with wooden lintels in the ground-floor rooms, and a central staircase with stick balusters, according to information provided by the owner in 1987. Front garden walls, constructed from probable 18th or 19th-century sandstone rubble, enclose the garden.

The barn has boarded double doors on its left-hand return front, and the horse-engine house on its right-hand return front, supported by stone piers and containing huge beams and a king-post truss. The barn’s interior is characterized by tie-beam roof trusses.

Litchaton Farmhouse, the shippon, barn, and garden walls form part of a larger farmstead group, which also includes an adjacent stable and coach house. The combination of an early 18th century farmhouse with a contemporary attached shippon within a continuous range is a rare survival.