Description

HIGH BICKINGTON
SS 61 NW
9/62 Bale's Ash and adjoining
- outbuildings and front garden walls

GV II

Farmhouse with adjoining outbuildings and front garden wall. C17 house with probable
C18 addition at rear, remodelled in the mid to late C19. Altered and outshut rebuilt
in 1987. Probably C18 and C19 outbuildings, and C19 garden walls. Rendered, over
stone-rubble ground floor and cob first floor to front and over cob on stone rubble
plinth at rear. Gable-ended Welsh-slate roof with ridge cresting and finials. C19
gault-brick axial and end stacks. Outbuilding with stone to ground floor and cob to
first floor, partly rebuilt and enlarged in stone rubble, and with gable-ended
corrugated-iron roofs. Uncoursed stone rubble garden walls.
Plan and development: Probable C17 three-room plan, facing south. Hall at centre
with its axial stack to right, entrance hall to left of hall with staircase and end
room to left with integral end stack. Room to right of hall (former kitchen) with
integral end stack and formerly with front doorway at right-hand end. Probable C18
wing projecting at rear of left-hand end and late C20 lean-to outshut (replacing C19
outshut) at rear of right-hand end. The entrance/staircase hall appears to have been
created from a larger room (see truncated integral lateral stack to front in which
the C19 doorway was inserted). The C17 plan possibly consisted of a hall to left
with lateral stack and smaller room to its right, extended by one room at the right-
hand end at a later date. Two storeys with rear wing of one storey and attic and
one-storey outshut. Probably C18 outbuilding adjoining at right-angles to front of
left-hand end, of one storey and loft. One-storey C19 outbuilding adjoining gable
end to front (present garage). Low stone walls enclosing garden to front of house.
Exterior: Irregularly-fenestrated front with 4 windows to first-floor and 5 to ground
floor; boxed margin-light sashes with stone cills, mostly late C19 but 3 are late C20
(1987) insertions. The left-hand ground-floor window replaces a former plank door
(formerly to small implement shed), the right-hand ground-floor window replaces
another former doorway and the second ground-floor window from the left is an
insertion. Entrance between second and third windows from left with C19 plank door.
Ground-floor C19 margin-light sash in left-hand gable end. Ground-floor segmental-
headed 4-pane window in gable end of rear wing.
Outbuilding adjoining to front has first-floor small-paned 2-light wooden casement to
right with wooden cill, central ground-floor C20 metal casement with wooden lintel
and brick reveals and C19 three-light ground-floor wooden casement to left with
wooden lintel (formerly a doorway - see straight joints inside). Old plank door to
right with pegged wooden frame and wooden lintel.
Garden walls to front with rounded coping and gateway opposite front door of house
with C19 cast-iron gate and square stone gate piers with pyramidal caps.
Interior of house: Hall has moulded (ovolo moulding and 2 cavettto mouldings)
ceiling cross beam in front of stack (plaster ceiling lower to the right-hand side).
Picture rail. Cupboard in front wall with 2-panelled door. Jambs of front window
continue down to floor level. Right-hand ground-floor room (former kitchen) has open
stone fireplace with chamfered wooden lintel and bread oven with C19 cast-iron door,
lettered: "Young and Son, Barnstaple". Cream hob in wall to right of fireplace.
Entrance hall with C19 tiled floor and C19 stairs with turned balusters. C19 four-
panelled doors throughout. C17 roof with trusses consisting of straight principal
rafters and lap-jointed collars. Interior of outbuilding with cobbled floor to rear
and 4-bay roof with trusses consisting of principal rafters and pegged halved lap-
jointed collars. Loft floor removed. Late C19 scissor trusses in lower addition to
front.

Listing NGR: SS6083519312

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26399036

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

• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)