North Heathercombe

North Heathercombe is a house, formerly a farmhouse, probably dating from the late 15th century with significant alterations and additions made during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. It was modernised in the late 20th century. The building has rendered granite rubble walls and granite rubble chimney stacks with drip-courses and tapering granite caps. The roof is thatched to the right and hipped to the left, with a slate roof covering the outshut at the rear.

The original plan consisted of three rooms with a through passage, featuring an open hall and possibly low partitions. In the second half of the 16th century, the building was remodelled when a closed truss was inserted between the hall and inner room. The inner room was possibly ceiled at this stage, and a newel staircase was added. A hall fireplace and ceiling were inserted, probably in the early 17th century, and at this time the lower end was likely re-roofed and a porch was added to the front of the passage. In the 18th century, a rear outshut was added.

The building is two storeys tall with an asymmetrical front of three windows, consisting of 20th-century wooden casement windows with glazing bars in small openings of 2, 3 and 4 lights. The through passage doorway is positioned to the right of centre, featuring a 17th-century studded plank door in a contemporary rendered stone porch with seats on either side and a thatched gable roof. It is believed the porch once had a granite arched doorway. A granite rubble outshut at the rear has 20th-century casement windows and a plank door positioned left of centre. Granite rubble garden walls to the front of the house have dressed quoins and flat coping stones with a slight return towards the house porch. The left-hand wall curves back to the house and at its upper end incorporates six bee-boles with corbelled roofs. To the right of the door, the wall extends approximately 13 metres northwards with one break and ranges from 1 to 2 metres high.

Internally, despite recent modernisation which has considerably altered the plan, several important early features survive. Two smoke-blackened roof trusses of differing types remain. Over the hall is the remains of an original truss of very large scantling with curved feet and a morticed collar above which the truss is cut off, with a mortice in the top of the principal where it is cut off and only a small section of collar surviving. This truss is similar in form to the roof in Penellick Farmhouse, Pelynt, Cornwall. The other early truss is the closed truss at the higher end of the hall, also smoke-blackened on the hall side. This consists of a blade morticed into a wall-post but without the typical curve of the usual jointed cruck, with the joint side-pegged on the hall side. It has a straight collar notched and halved onto the principal rafters, with purlins and ridge threaded. Between these two roof trusses the purlins and rafters are also smoke-blackened. Over the lower end are plain 17th-century trusses. The ground floor partition between hall and inner room has been removed, but on the rear wall of the hall, probably close to the position of the partition, a stone newel staircase rises leading to the chamber above the inner room. The hall fireplace is granite framed with a corbelled chamfered lintel, with corbel stones curved and chamfered at the edge and jambs also chamfered with rough stops. The fireplace back adjoining the cross passage is constructed of granite ashlar with a coved cornice. The lower room has a heavy unchamfered cross beam and a 4-fielded panel door. Several 17th-century plank doors survive elsewhere in the house, studded with old strap hinges. Although considerably modernised, the house preserves a very traditional appearance externally and internally contains several early features of particular interest due to their relatively unusual construction, notably the two early roof trusses and the corbelled fireplace.