Heath Farmhouse Including Stables Adjoining To East, And Including Front Garden Walls Adjoining To South

Farmhouse. The farmhouse largely dates to the early to mid-18th century, although elements may be from the 16th or 17th century; it was modernized in the mid to late 19th century. It is constructed of plastered cob and stone rubble, with stone rubble stacks topped with 19th-century brick. The roof is thatched, with corrugated asbestos replacing the thatch over the stables, rear block, and outshots.

The building has an L-shaped plan. The main block faces south and is built across a gentle hillslope, with a 3-room-and-through-passage plan. An inner room kitchen contains a large end stack. The hall, now the dining room, has an axial stack behind the passage, which now holds the 19th-century staircase. The lower end room is a parlour with a gable-end stack that backs onto the stable block to the east. A service rear block projects at right angles to the rear of the inner room kitchen and contains an unheated room behind a passage along the back of the main block. A series of outshots are to the rear of the main block, with the latest blocking the rear passage doorway. While no features earlier than the 18th century are visible, the plan-form suggests a 16th-century origin. It is possible the house was rebuilt on old foundations, with earlier fabric hidden behind later plaster. It may have originally been an open hall house, perhaps heated by an open hearth fire, with fireplaces inserted in the later 16th and 17th centuries, and a progressive flooring across the property. The farmhouse is now two storeys throughout.

The front of the main house has an attractive facade with mid-to-late 19th-century 2- and 3-light casement windows with glazing bars. The passage front doorway has a contemporary 4-panel door, overlight with margin panes, panelled reveals, and a flat hood on shaped brackets, now supported by cast iron posts. The front wall continues to the right as the blind rear wall of the stables. The rear block (also gable-ended) has a first-floor 19th-century casement window with rectangular panes of leaded glass.

The interior largely reflects the mid-to-late 19th-century modernization. The large kitchen fireplace is granite with a soffit-chamfered oak lintel, likely from the early 18th century or earlier. No other carpentry detail is visible, and the joinery and other detail is consistently from the mid-to-late 19th century. The roof within the stable is supported by A-frame trusses with pegged and spiked lap-jointed collars. The front garden is enclosed by a low stone rubble wall with rounded granite ashlar coping and includes monolithic granite gate posts, square in section with rounded heads.