Description

NORTH MOLTON LITCHATON HILL
SS 63 SE
9/166 Litchaton Farmhouse with shippon
- and barn adjoining to east and
front garden walls adjoining to
south
GV II
Farmhouse and shippon, barn and garden walls. Probably early C18 house and adjoining
shippon, possibly a remodelling of an earlier house with some minor alterations and
additions of c.1900. Mid to late C19 barn with some late C20 alterations. House and
shippon of tooled dressed sandstone (almost of ashlar quality), rendered to rear
(probably over cob). Left-hand end extended and probably partly rebuilt in red
brick. Scantle-slate roof, gable ended to right and half hipped to left. Stone
square stacks with weatherings and coved caps; c.1900 brick stack. Barn of uncoursed
stone rubble and cob, partly rebuilt in rendered C20 concrete blockwork, with gable
ended Welsh slate roof, hipped over horse-engine house.
Plan and development: Early C18 two-room central-entrance plan house (facing south),
with axial end stacks and central gabled porch. One-room service end to left and
adjoining shippon to right. Left-hand end of house extended and probably partly
rebuilt c.1900, and roof probably altered over this end at the same time. Addition
with lean-to roof and external end stack. Later barn to right adjoining at right
angles to front of shippon, with polygonal-ended horse-engine house to right (east).
Two storey house and shippon with 3-storey service end.
Exterior: House with symmetrical 5-bay front to centre; C20 two-light metal casements
(in old openings) with wooden lintels and cills. Two left-hand ground-floor windows
blocked (see straight joints and wooden lintels) and single window inserted between,
probably in the late C18 or early C19. Central boarded door with pegged frame and
C18 stone porch with shaped jambs to entrance, rendered gable and side benches
within. Service end to left has C19 or C20 two-light wooden casement to each floor,
each with wooden lintel. Shippon to right with plinth, boarded loft door to right,
ground-floor window to right, with wooden lintel, and boarded door to left, also with
wooden lintel.
Interior of house not inspected, but owner reports (September 1987) the existence of
open stone fireplaces in ground-floor rooms with wooden lintels and central staircase
with stick balusters. Probably C18 or C19 sandstone rubble walls enclosing garden to
front of 5-bay centre.
Barn to right with boarded double doors in left-hand return front. Horse-engine
house to right-hand return front, supported on stone piers and with huge beams and
king-post truss inside. Interior of barn with tie-beam roof trusses.
The house and adjoining shippon and barn from part of a farmstead group, also
including the adjoining stable and coach house (q.v.). An early C18 farmhouse with a
contemporary attached shippon (in a continous range) is a rare survival.

Listing NGR: SS6986230201

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26577009

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair