Pitmans

Pitmans is a house with origins in the late 16th century or earlier, with extensions dating to the 17th century. The first floor was largely reconstructed after a fire in 1975. The house is constructed of whitewashed rendered cob and stone rubble, with a thatched roof that is gabled at the ends. A front lateral projecting stack has a granite shaft and a bread oven bulge to the main block, and there is a right-end stack to a wing. The plan is L-shaped, forming two sides of a narrow courtyard, with Beggars Roost forming the remaining two sides. The original plan is not entirely clear, but the main block is single-depth, with a large room to the right heated by the lateral stack and a narrow service room to the left. This suggests that Pitmans was originally the lower end and passage of a three-room and through-passage house, with a hall and inner room in the main block of Beggars Roost. A single-room plan wing is located to the rear of the heated room and contains some 17th-century features.

The two-storey west front has an asymmetrical two-window facade, with the lateral stack to the right and a 20th-century thatched timber and glass porch with a front door to the left. Small-pane timber casement windows are present. The right return elevation, overlooking the lane through Higher Ashton, has an asymmetrical three-window facade, with the eaves thatch eyebrowed over the two right-hand first-floor windows. A doorway with a timber door leads directly into the wing, approximately in the centre, and there are two-light 20th-century small-pane timber casements. One, probably 17th-century, window with chamfered jambs is located to the rear of the wing.

Inside, the putative passage has an oak plank and muntin screen to the right, with a good doorframe and a cambered chamfered lintel. The muntins are chamfered and stopped. A chamfered crossbeam to the left of the passage retains pegholes, possibly for former screen muntins. The principal room contains a chamfered axial beam with exposed chamfered stopped joists; some joists are 1970s copies, following the fire. A fine granite fireplace has hollow-chamfered jambs and a chamfered nowy-headed granite lintel below a granite relieving arch; a 19th-century bread oven is cut through the lintel. The ground floor room of the wing has a rough axial beam, an open fireplace with rubble jambs, a re-used granite lintel, and a bread oven. One corner of the room is panelled with 17th-century panelling which has been re-sited. A small, 17th-century two-light timber mullioned window, blocked externally, is on the rear wall. The roof was entirely replaced after the 1975 fire. Pitmans is located on the perimeter of the churchyard and forms a group with Beggars Roost and the former wheelwright's shop.