Great Huish Farmhouse

Great Huish Farmhouse is a farmhouse dating to the mid-17th century, with possible earlier origins, and modernized in the mid-to-late 19th century, with a kitchen wing altered around 1970. The main structure is built of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks featuring plastered brick chimney shafts, and a slate roof, formerly thatched. The house has an L-shaped plan.

The main block, facing south, comprises four rooms. At the western end is a parlour with a projecting gable-end stack. This is followed by an entrance lobby with a straight flight staircase, a hall or dining room with an axial stack backing onto the staircase, an unheated room, possibly a buttery, and a pair of unheated service rooms separated by an axial wall, the latter projecting slightly to the rear. A one-room kitchen block projects at right angles from the right end of the main block, with its axial stack backing onto the main block; this wing is a 19th-century addition and was reduced to a single storey around 1970. The main block was modernized in the mid-to-late 19th century, and much of the original structure is concealed behind plaster.

The exterior of the main block exhibits an irregular four-window front with 20th-century casement windows containing glazing bars. A 20th-century part-glazed door sits centrally. The kitchen wing has 20th-century casement windows flanking a 20th-century door recessed within a contemporary porch. The main block’s roof is gable-ended to the left and returns forward, stepping down to the kitchen wing, which itself is gable-ended.

The interior largely reflects 19th and 20th-century modernization, with blocked fireplaces and limited exposed carpentry. However, the hall/dining room has a mid-17th-century crossbeam with broad ovolo mouldings and stepped run-out stops. There is also a contemporary chamfered doorframe between the buttery and service rooms. The roof’s structure was not accessible for inspection, though exposed bases of straight principals at first floor suggest A-frame trusses, reportedly pegged together, possibly dating to the 17th century.