Higher Lake

This is a late Medieval house, originally a farmhouse, located in Langtree. It was significantly remodelled in the late 17th century and altered and extended in the 18th century. The construction is of rendered cob and stone rubble, with a thatched roof gabled to the left and half-hipped to the right. There are three brick stacks – two axial and one at the left gable end.

The original plan comprised four rooms, formerly with a through-passage. The lower right end of the house was likely rebuilt or heavily remodelled to create the present two rooms. The original Medieval house likely had an open roof and an open-hearth fire. In the late 17th century, floors were inserted and stacks were constructed. The axial stack in the hall backs onto the former through-passage, the inner room stack is at the high end of the house, and the axial stack in the wall between the two lower end rooms was likely added later. An 18th-century outbuilding was incorporated into the house's accommodation.

The front facade is asymmetrical, with a three-window arrangement featuring mainly 2- and 3-light casements from the late 19th or early 20th century. A late 20th-century gabled roof porch is positioned to the right of centre, concealing a plank door. A surviving 17th-century 3-light wooden mullion window with chamfered interior is located on the ground floor to the left. The rear elevation includes a doorway into the outbuilding and a glazed door (now a window) to the rear of the passage. Another glazed door is situated to the right.

Inside, the hall has chamfered cross-beams with run-out stops and unchamfered exposed joists, reinforced by two new beams. It contains an axial fireplace that backs onto the former through-passage, featuring a chamfered cambered bressumer and a clom oven. The inner room features a chamfered axial beam and exposed unchamfered joists, plus a stone fireplace with an ovolo-moulded stopped bressumer and a clom oven. The room on the lower right side of the former through-passage has roughly chamfered cross-beams, exposed unchamfered joists, and a fireplace in the axial wall with a later bressumer. A cross-beam on the upper side of the former through-passage is chamfered only for half its length. The lower right-hand room has a roughly-hewn axial beam. A cob wall extends only to first-floor height, separating the lower room from the former outbuilding. The roof consists of nine bays with lapped collars and horizontal common-rafters; some of these elements are reused and smoke-blackened. Two trusses at the lower end also appear smoke-blackened, and the hall truss has notched halving for the lapped collar. It is an interesting example of a late Medieval house that was remodelled and partly reconstructed in the 17th and 18th centuries.