Unoccupied House Immediately To South-East Of Higher Dittisham Farmhouse

Unoccupied house immediately to the south-east of Higher Dittisham Farmhouse, Walkhampton. Now used as store and stabling.

This building began as a relatively modest longhouse in the late 16th or early 17th century, with a shippon at the lower, right-hand end and a through-passage at its higher end divided only by a light partition. To the left of the passage was a small hall with an axial fireplace backing onto the passage. Beyond this lay a small unheated inner room, and at the rear, overlapping both rooms, was a newel stair projection. In 1663 a parlour wing was added, projecting from the higher end and involving a partial rebuild of the inner room. This wing is now gutted internally but retains its original external door providing independent access. The position of the surviving fireplace and windows suggests a ground-floor arrangement of a lobby entrance with one or possibly two service rooms to the left and the parlour to the right, heated by an axial fireplace in the wall adjoining the hall. A gable-end fireplace on the first floor of the wing also survives. At this stage the hall was probably relegated to kitchen status.

The house was probably abandoned in the later 19th century. Substantial changes were made throughout the 20th century: the shippon was reduced in height and divided into loose boxes, the passage partition was removed and doors blocked, the doorway from hall to passage was blocked, and the original internal partitions in the wing were removed.

The building is constructed of stone rubble walls with a gable-ended corrugated iron roof. It is two storeys, L-shaped, with the larger range sloping downhill consisting of the hall and shippon, now reduced to one storey with two stable doors. The original drain-hole survives in the lower gable end. At the higher, left-hand end of its front wall, the blocked passage doorway can be seen. A 20th-century plank door has been inserted into the front of the hall at the left end of the main range, with a loading doorway above. The wing projects at the left-hand end with a four-centred chamfered granite doorway on the inner face. To its left is the hollow-chamfered granite frame of a two-light mullion window whose central mullion has been removed; similar window evidence appears on the ground floor of the gable end. To the left of the arched doorway on the first floor is a tall inserted 20th-century window opening, and to its right is a granite datestone inscribed "1663 RPM".

Interior features include the hall fireplace with plain granite lintel and unchamfered granite jambs, with an oven in its right-hand side. At the higher end of the hall is a chamfered half beam set into the wall. Stone newel stairs remain at the rear of the hall. The former parlour preserves its blocked fireplace with granite jambs and an ovolo-moulded wooden lintel with hollow-stepped and notched stops. The first-floor fireplace in the wing has a chamfered wooden lintel and chamfered granite jambs.

Despite recent alterations, the main fabric of the house survives with numerous features from both building phases, representing an interesting example of a modest parlour wing house.