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

NORTH MOLTON LITCHATON HILL SS 63 SE 9/166 Litchaton Farmhouse with shippon - and barn adjoining to east and front garden walls adjoining to south GV II Farmhouse and shippon, barn and garden walls. Probably early C18 house and adjoining shippon, possibly a remodelling of an earlier house with some minor alterations and additions of c.1900. Mid to late C19 barn with some late C20 alterations. House and shippon of tooled dressed sandstone (almost of ashlar quality), rendered to rear (probably over cob). Left-hand end extended and probably partly rebuilt in red brick. Scantle-slate roof, gable ended to right and half hipped to left. Stone square stacks with weatherings and coved caps; c.1900 brick stack. Barn of uncoursed stone rubble and cob, partly rebuilt in rendered C20 concrete blockwork, with gable ended Welsh slate roof, hipped over horse-engine house. Plan and development: Early C18 two-room central-entrance plan house (facing south), with axial end stacks and central gabled porch. One-room service end to left and adjoining shippon to right. Left-hand end of house extended and probably partly rebuilt c.1900, and roof probably altered over this end at the same time. Addition with lean-to roof and external end stack. Later barn to right adjoining at right angles to front of shippon, with polygonal-ended horse-engine house to right (east). Two storey house and shippon with 3-storey service end. Exterior: House with symmetrical 5-bay front to centre; C20 two-light metal casements (in old openings) with wooden lintels and cills. Two left-hand ground-floor windows blocked (see straight joints and wooden lintels) and single window inserted between, probably in the late C18 or early C19. Central boarded door with pegged frame and C18 stone porch with shaped jambs to entrance, rendered gable and side benches within. Service end to left has C19 or C20 two-light wooden casement to each floor, each with wooden lintel. Shippon to right with plinth, boarded loft door to right, ground-floor window to right, with wooden lintel, and boarded door to left, also with wooden lintel. Interior of house not inspected, but owner reports (September 1987) the existence of open stone fireplaces in ground-floor rooms with wooden lintels and central staircase with stick balusters. Probably C18 or C19 sandstone rubble walls enclosing garden to front of 5-bay centre. Barn to right with boarded double doors in left-hand return front. Horse-engine house to right-hand return front, supported on stone piers and with huge beams and king-post truss inside. Interior of barn with tie-beam roof trusses. The house and adjoining shippon and barn from part of a farmstead group, also including the adjoining stable and coach house (q.v.). An early C18 farmhouse with a contemporary attached shippon (in a continous range) is a rare survival.

Listing NGR: SS6986230201