Half Moon House

Half Moon House is likely a late 16th-century house, originally probably a farmhouse, that has undergone significant alterations over time. It was later divided into cottages and subsequently used as a public house. The building incorporates 18th-century additions at both ends. It is constructed of granite rubble walls, plastered on the front, with a thatched roof featuring gable ends. Granite end and ridge stacks are present, along with a rebuilt brick shaft to a rear lateral stack that sits flush with the external wall.

The original layout probably comprised three rooms, with a through passage and a rear lateral stack to the hall. Passage partitions have been removed, and the original front door is now a window. The inner room features an end stack, potentially once unheated, while the lower end contains a kitchen with a stack. A well, originally for a newel staircase, is set into the rear wall beside the kitchen stack, although the staircase is now gone. Single-room additions were likely built when the house was subdivided, creating separate entrances into the front of the inner and right-hand rooms.

A detached parallel range is located close to the rear of the lower end, possibly serving as a service room; it incorporates a well house with a stone trough at its upper end and is now attached to the main house. The house is two stories high and presents an asymmetrical six-window front, with a one-window addition at each end, the right-hand one being slightly set back. Windows are largely 20th-century 2-light wooden casements with glazing bars, set into small, perhaps early, openings. A larger 3-light casement is located on the ground floor to the left. The original entrance, formerly in the centre, has been converted into a window. Open-fronted plastered stone porches with lean-to slate roofs shelter both doorways, and 20th-century plank doors provide access. Raking buttresses are positioned to the right of the centre of the front elevation, with slated weathering.

At the rear, a formerly detached service range of narrow rectangular plan, now attached to the house, is roofed with thatch. A 20th-century conservatory and a granite semi-circular tower are also attached.

Internally, two surviving cross beams remain. One, in the inner room, is chamfered with an ogee stop and plain joists on its lower side running to a partition wall, with mortices visible on the upper side. A second beam in the former kitchen has a similar chamfer and stops. The kitchen fireplace features a single granite jamb on the right and a semi-circular stone oven opening to the left, with a wooden chamfered lintel featuring hollow stepped and notched stops. A re-used C19 moulded granite fireplace is present in the hall fireplace. On the first floor, two small Victorian cast iron fireplaces with gates survive in two of the left-hand rooms. The original section of the house has an 18th-century roof with straight principals crossed and morticed with curved collars lapped and pegged to trusses, showing evidence of trenching for purlins. A 2-light wooden mullion window with flat chamfered jambs and mullion, rebated for glass, is found in the former gable wall above the kitchen. The pleasant traditional facade enhances the village green area.