Higher Eastcott Farmhouse

NORTHLEW SX 59 NW 9/219 Higher Eastcott Farmhouse - - II Farmhouse. Probably early C16 with C17 modifications, modernised in C20. Plastered cob walls. Hipped thatch roof. Partly projecting plastered rubble front lateral stack with dripcourse and brick snaft. Brick stack at right-hand end. Plan: originally apparently of longhouse or longhouse derivative plan with shippon at lower right-hand end, through-passage, hall and inner room to its left. Judging from the evidence of the roof timbers the hall may well have originally been open to the roof with a central hearth. The house is unlikely to nave been open from end to end however as solid walls divide the hall from inner room and lower end. In the circa early C17 the front lateral stack was inserted into the hall, probably at the same time as its ceiling. In the C18 or C19 the shippon was converted to domestic use and a stack inserted in its end wall. Modernised in late C20 when stairs were inserted into passage. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 3-window front of early C20 2 and 3-light casements. Circa early C20 gabled porch to right of centre with decorative ridge tiles and finial to slate roof. C20 plank door. Rear elevation has few openings, passage doorway to left of centre has chamfered wooden lintel above - doorframe obscured but may also be C17. Behind the inner room the wall projects possibly for a former staircase. Interior: hall has open fireplace with high chamfered wooden lintel. The lower room has blocked ventilation slits in its walls providing evidence of its former use as a shippon. The fireplace in this room is a late one with a plain wooden lintel. Access to the roof was limited but whilst the trusses appeared to be of simple construction with morticed apex and lapped or halved collars the timbers were definately darkened as if from smoke-blackening - suggesting a late medieval date. This appears to be an unusual example of a longhouse some distance away from the moor.

Listing NGR: SX5157999864