Higher Jurston Farmhouse

Higher Jurston Farmhouse

This is a former longhouse, probably built in the 17th century with alterations carried out in the late 18th or early 19th century.

The building is constructed mainly of granite rubble with roughcast rendering. It has a slate roof, though corrugated iron and asbestos sheet cover the ancillary parts. Doors and windows are timber.

The farmhouse follows a three-room cross-passage plan facing south, with a former shippon (cattle shed) to the east and a pre-1840 extension to the rear.

The main block is two storeys with a three-bay front elevation. The pitched roof is slate-covered with rendered chimneys on the west gable-end and positioned axially. To the east the roofline drops to what may be its historic height, forming a garage with store above, and a further single-storey lean-to at the eastern end. These ancillary roofs are corrugated sheet. The principal elevation has three timber three-light casements on the first floor and two three-light casements on the ground floor, with the main entrance to their right. The front door is probably mid-20th century, planked and partly glazed with a bracketed canopy. To the right is a mid-20th century window, followed by the garage with mid-20th century planked timber double-doors and a timber door above, and a further mid-20th century planked door to the lean-to. The granite rubble construction is visible on the west elevation, where a doorway with a tooled granite lintel is now infilled with red brick. The rear (north) has a single-storey extension with partially-rendered walls, corrugated sheet roofs and timber plank doors.

Internally, the house is entered through a cross passage with early 19th-century timber plank panelling to the right, which conceals a plank-and-muntin screen within the former shippon. The screen retains slots in its top rail for the historic floor joists and shows deterioration at the base where animal activity is evident. A window in the south wall marks the former external access to the shippon. The east wall is a later addition but includes a substantial timber cross beam. A wide early 19th-century door leads north to a rear extension containing a WC, store and ancillary areas with a water pump and sink, lit by small windows.

The room to the left of the cross passage has chamfered cross beams with a staircase in the north-east corner. It features early 19th-century plank panelling and a ledge-and-brace door. An inglenook on the east wall contains a 20th-century Rayburn and has a shaped lintel and shelf, with a full-height settle to its left and fitted cupboards with plank doors to its right. Iron hooks are fixed to the ceiling and beams. A wide door beside the stairs leads to the rear extension over a substantial stone step. The western ground-floor room has a fireplace on its west wall with an alcove to the left (historically an external door, now blocked) and a fitted cupboard with glazed doors and H-hinges opposite.

The first floor contains three bedrooms, each with deep window reveals. The central space has fitted cupboards with plank doors beside the chimney breast. The western room has a late 19th-century or early 20th-century fire surround and grate, and shows evidence of the former eaves height on its north wall through a blocked window and a 'shelf' created by the historic wall plate, also visible at the head of the stairs. Internal doors are timber ledge-and-brace throughout. Ground-floor floors are concrete; first-floor floors are 19th-century timber boards. Walls are plastered throughout. Several moorstone boulders are present at floor level against the historic external walls.

The garage, formerly part of the shippon, has a 20th-century ceiling structure on concrete block wall piers. Its floor is cobbled with a central drain lined with larger stones running axially and disappearing under the western wall. A small window on the north elevation may have been the dung hole, and evidence of wall tethering posts survives.