Higher Venton Farmhouse Including the Garden Wall in Front of the House

Higher Venton Farmhouse, originally a longhouse, dates back to the 16th century or earlier, with a porch added in 1739 and a northwest wing constructed in 1904. The farmhouse is built of granite rubble, with the front wall rendered with roughcast. The roof is thatched, hipped on the left side, and includes a tiled porch with a corrugated iron lean-to covering what was formerly a shippon. The original chimney stack remains on the ridge behind the entrance porch, with another towards the right-hand end, alongside a later granite stack on the right gable.

The plan features three original domestic rooms to the right of a through-passage, with the right-hand two rooms and the 1904 wing now occupied separately. The shippon to the left of the passage has been converted into a kitchen since at least 1948, although the far end remains a calf shelter. The entrance porch incorporates a dairy on its right-hand side. The two-storey house-part has four windows. Most windows are 19th-century casements with glazing-bars, except for a late 16th or 17th-century window on the ground floor, which features three lights with hollow-moulded granite mullions. To the left of this window is a chamfered granite doorway with an almost rounded arch, above which is a metal sundial.

The porch's doorway on the left has a rounded granite head made from a single stone, inscribed with the date 1739 and two illegible initials. Inside the porch, there is a stone seat on the right and a round archway leading into the lean-to, flanked by two more stone seats. The doorway to the house has a chamfered, straight-headed wooden frame leading to a 16th or 17th-century plank door with moulded ribs and wrought-iron strap-hinges. The shippon features a ventilation slit, now obscured by the lean-to, and another in the rear wall. The gable-wall of the shippon has granite steps leading to a loft door, with a drain outlet running beneath them. A blocked ventilation slit appears to be located to the left of the steps.

Inside, the former hall contains a fireplace, likely dating to the 16th century, with chamfered granite jambs and lintel. A chamfered upper-floor beam has unusual, deeply-cut stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops. Pre-1904 sections of the house, excluding the upper floor and right-hand end, are reported by the owner to contain two stone staircases. The roof over the shippon end has plain principal rafters with collars pegged to the faces, without common rafters.

The garden wall in front of the farmhouse is constructed from massive, primarily unmortared granite boulders. The 1904 wing was built by the present owner’s predecessor.