Higher Broughton Farmhouse

Higher Broughton Farmhouse is a Grade II listed building constructed of local lias stone rubble, rendered to the front and south-east gable wall. Much of the rear elevation has been rebuilt in modern blockwork. The roof is clad in double Roman tiles with brick chimney stacks. The windows are largely replacements from the 18th and 19th centuries, although two earlier timber mullioned windows survive at the rear.

The building is a tapering rectangular structure of two storeys arranged on a five-room plan with a through passage. A wing of probable late 18th-century date projects from the front (south-west), and there is a former dairy at the south-east end of the rear elevation.

The principal elevation faces south-west onto the road. The entrance sits in the angle between the main range and the projecting late 18th-century wing, with a 19th-century braced timber door and a slate-clad hipped porch supported on four timber posts. To the right of the doorway are three regularly-spaced casement windows, and four similar windows light the first floor. The later wing has a canted bay window at ground floor and a hornless sash window with glazing bars above. A second entrance door is set in the south-east gable end with a two-light casement to the first floor. The southern part of the rear elevation is masked by lean-to additions including the former dairy, though the upper parts of two windows are visible, one understood to be a two-light mullioned window with plain chamfering. The dairy has a slate-covered roof with a window featuring glazing bars and a door in its north-west elevation. To the right of the former dairy is a five-light mullioned timber window with double ovolo mouldings marking the former hall position, beyond which are three timber windows of 18th or 19th-century date and a single first-floor window. At the north-western end is a single-storey 18th or 19th-century addition with a 19th-century window in the north-east elevation and a 20th-century window and doorway in the right return.

Internally, the entrance leads into the former through passage, the rear doorway now blocked and replaced with a window. To the left is the former service end. The present kitchen has a large blocked fireplace with a substantial lintel and a curved recess to the left, possibly the remains of a curing chamber. It features a chamfered ceiling beam with step and run-out stops to both ends and an axial beam with plain chamfers. Beyond the kitchen, in the single-storey addition, is a further fireplace with a chamfered timber lintel and an oven to the side. The ground-floor room in the front wing has a 20th-century fireplace. The room to the right of the entrance passage has a framed ceiling whose beams continue through into an inserted rear corridor. The beams display ogee and hollow mouldings and are set in from the walls. Rooms at the south-east end, added in the late 17th century, are accessed from the rear corridor. The far room retains a fireplace with a stone lintel featuring a four-centred arch and chamfered jambs; the fireplace to the other room has been blocked and fitted with a 20th-century replacement. From the corridor, a 17th-century plank door with strap hinges, possibly re-sited, leads to the former dairy. Two staircases, probably of 19th-century date, within the rear corridor provide access to the first floor where most bedrooms are reached from a rear corridor.

Much of the roof structure remains visible. The trusses are of various forms; those in the northern third of the house, together with the purlins and ridge-piece in this section, are smoke blackened. At the far north-west end is an axial end cruck for a half hip with a tapering blade braced to a square-set ridge, tree-ring dated to between 1267 and 1299. Adjacent is a timber-framed end wall to the former open hall. This closed frame is an aisled-end truss also dated to the late 13th century, comprising two tall posts similar to aisle posts and a braced tie-beam. The next truss is situated in a recess forming part of the hall stack and could not be inspected but is understood from a 1990 architectural survey to be a large braced cruck of which only one half remains. The roof carpentry in the rest of the building dates from the 17th century and consists of collar trusses morticed and pegged, with butt purlins.