Lower Chichacott

Lower Chichacott is a house and barn, originally a farmhouse, dating to the late 16th or early 17th century, with alterations made in the 19th and 20th centuries. The house is constructed of stone rubble walls, with some cob below the eaves on the barn. The house has an asbestos gable roof, while the barn has a hipped corrugated iron roof with some underlying thatch. A plastered stone rubble stack projects from the right gable end, featuring stone dripcourses and a tapering cap. There are also axial and rear outshut brick stacks.

The building’s plan follows a longhouse derivative layout, featuring a barn/shippon at the lower left end, divided by solid walls from a through passage, and the hall beyond. The hall is unusually heated by an axial fireplace located at its inner end. A newel stair projects from the rear of the hall, while the inner room has a gable end fireplace. A rear outshut was added to the hall and shippon in the 19th century, and extended in the 20th. The eaves to the house were raised at that time.

The front of the house has an asymmetrical three-window facade. The windows are 20th-century casements, with glazing bars – two-light on the first floor and three-light on the ground floor. A late 19th-century conservatory sits in front of the inner room on the right. The barn has a lower, possibly original, roofline, and a lean-to at the front which was extended in the late 20th century to form an open-fronted porch to the passage doorway, featuring a 19th-century panelled and part-glazed door. The rear elevation has a semi-circular stair projection to the left of centre, and an outshut to the right.

Inside, the feet of straight principals resting on the wall-plate are visible on the first floor, and the roof timbers likely date from the 19th century. The barn roof is probably contemporary or slightly earlier, with rough straight principals with lapped and pegged collars. The hall has a granite-framed fireplace, with a more recent infill, a monolithic granite jamb to the right and a rebuilt rubble jamb to the left, where a cloam oven was inserted. A chamfered cross beam is present, with no visible stops. The wooden newel stairs have likely had their treads renewed. The inner room fireplace has stone jambs and a dressed granite back with a shallow shelf; its lintel has been replaced. The house forms part of an unspoiled hamlet of early farmhouses.