Higher Cheriton Farmhouse And Adjoining Farmbuildings To North West And South East

Higher Cheriton Farmhouse is a farmhouse with adjoining farm buildings, dating from the early to mid 17th century, or possibly earlier. Parts of the building were likely demolished in the late 17th or early 18th century, and a porch was probably added at that time. Later extensions occurred in the 18th century, with eaves raised and farm buildings added in the early to mid-19th century.

The farmhouse is constructed of coursed rubble stone, with the front and right-hand end rendered. It has rendered stacks, including end stacks to the left, and a gabled slate roof. Originally, the plan was a three-room-and-through-passage layout facing southwest, with a lower end to the right. The hall had an axial stack backing onto the passage, and the inner room had an end stack to the left. A service room was demolished in the late 17th or early 18th century, the passage entrance was blocked, and a new entrance with a large porch was added in front of the former hall. A parlour with an integral end stack and a front entrance was added to the upper left end. The former hall is now the kitchen, incorporating a winder stair in front of the stack. A lean-to dairy, likely from the 18th century, extends to the rear of the kitchen and former through-passage. It's possible the house was originally an open hall, floored in the 17th century, and the service end later demolished with the porch’s addition. An alternative plan suggests a longhouse design, with the present lower-end shippon being rebuilt later, although still possibly contemporary with the farmhouse.

Adjoining farm buildings include a 19th-century shippon to the right and a late 19th-century addition to the left. The front of the farmhouse is asymmetrical, with 4 first-floor 2-light wooden casements and 2 to the ground floor. A boarded 19th-century door is off-centre to the right, set within a pegged wooden frame. A probably 18th-century gabled porch has a segmental-arched opening and a lean-to privy adjoining the front of the kitchen to the left. A 20th-century half-glazed door is to the left, with a gabled porch. The left-hand farm building has a pair of large 20th-century boarded doors, and the right-hand shippon has a boarded door to the left of a 2-leaf boarded door and a vent to the left.

Inside the kitchen (likely the former hall) are a pair of chamfered cross-beams, with chamfered wall half-beams in each room. A boarded door to the dairy at the rear of the kitchen, opposite the porch, has a possibly 17th-century chamfered wooden frame with mason's mitres. The former through-passage to the right contains a doorway to the dairy (the former rear entrance) and two blocked doorways to the former, now demolished, service rooms. The window reveals on the front extend to the floor, suggesting a former doorway and supporting the interpretation of this space as the former through passage.