Swete Sigford

Swete Sigford is a house, now abandoned and used as a farm building, located at Higher Sigford in Ilsington. It is a very rare example of a Medieval two-room and through-passage plan house with an open hall and a three storey service end.

The building dates from the late Medieval period, with remodelling in the mid-late 16th century and later 17th century. A shippon (cattle shed) was added circa the early 19th century. The structure is built of local limestone rubble and dressed granite, with gable-ended roofs clad in corrugated-iron sheets. The stacks are truncated below the roofs.

The original plan consisted of a two-room and cross-through-passage late Medieval house with a hall on the right (north east), open to roof and heated by an open hearth fire, and a service room on the left (south west) with a chamber above and over the passage, and with a cellar below. Around the mid-late 16th century, an axial stack was built at the lower end of the hall, backing onto the cross-through-passage, while the hall remained open to the roof. By the late 17th century, a floor was inserted into the hall, creating a chamber above, and winder stairs were built beside the stack. The storeyed low end was probably truncated at this time. In the early 19th century the shippon was rebuilt with a loft above. The house was abandoned in the 19th century and has since been used as a farm building.

The south east front is two storeys. The house to the right has a tall hall window and a very small stair window. The cross-passage is at centre with dressed granite jambs. The lower end on the left has large ground and first floor openings and a smaller cellar opening below, all without frames. The shippon is set back slightly on the lower ground level to the left with a tall doorway on the right and two small ground floor window openings on the left. The gable end of the shippon has no openings. The high north east gable end of the house has a small first floor window with possibly re-used Medieval wooden three-light frame with triangular headed lights, the mullions missing. At the rear (north west), the shippon at lower level on the right is set back slightly and has no openings. The house on the left has a small window below the eaves on the right with a straight joint in the masonry below, possibly the jamb of a passage rear doorway.

The cross-passage has a plank-and-muntin screen on the low side with a chamfered shouldered arch doorway and rebated doorway to the right, and exposed unchamfered joists. The axial stack has a granite ashlar back onto the passage with chamfered plinth and cornice, and a large hall fireplace with monolithic chamfered granite jambs on both sides and a large slightly cambered chamfered timber bressumer. There is a chamfered plinth at the back of the fireplace and a granite domed oven under newel stairs to the left, which rise to the hall and lower end chambers with chamfered timber door-frames with cranked heads and mason's mitres. The hall has deeply chamfered cross-beams with hollow step stops and bead arris mouldings to joists, and a granite flag stone floor. The tall hall front window has splayed reveals. The chamber over the low end has a fireplace on the low side with its stack corbelled out into the shippon, with granite jambs and a chamfered timber bressumer with hollow step stops, and splayed window openings at front and rear.

The roof over the hall has a truss with some smoke-blackening, a yoke at the apex, and mortices for collar and mortices and trenches for purlins and a trenched diagonal ridgepiece. The circa 18th century roof over the low end has three trusses with collars lapped and pegged to principals, and one re-used principal with a redundant mortice for collar.

The cellar at the low end has remains of plaster, unchamfered joists, probably a re-used Medieval small three-light chamfered timber window, and a doorway on the low side wall and blocked opening in the rear wall by the rear left corner. The shippon has floor beams, but the loft floor has been removed, and it has a 20th century roof structure.