Description

BURRINGTON TWITCHEN LANE
SS 61 NW

5/41 Higher Twitchen, including
- lofted shippon attached at
east end
- II

Former farmhouse, now used for holiday accommodation. C16, remodelled probably in
C17, with C20 alterations. Painted rendered stone rubble and cob. Asbestos slate
roof with gable ends. Tall rendered front lateral hall stack, largely rebuilt in
C20. Rendered stack across rear right-hand corner of lower end, and axial brick
stack towards left end heating inner room.
Plan: Basically 3-room and cross-passage plan with attached outbuilding now
converted to garage at left (upper) end and lofted shippon to right end. Original
plan of farmhouse obscured by later developments, but certainly consisted of a
former open hall, the surviving original roof structure being confined to the lower
end below the present hall/passage partition. Probably in the C17 the hall was
floored and the front lateral hall stack inserted. A stair turret appears to have
been added to the rear of the passage, but in the C19 this was removed and the
turret remodelled as a 2-storey service outshut. A straight run staircase was
inserted by taking the lower end of the hall into the passage. A solid wall
partition rises to first floor only between the hall and inner room, but it is not
possible to determine whether the latter is an addition; certainly a pronounced
straight joint and a break in the roof levels over the centre of the inner room
suggests extensive rebuilding at this end in the late C17 to judge by the roof
structure and inner room fireplace. The converted outbuilding and the part of the
inner room to the left of the straight joint appear to be of an integral build. The
shippon attached at the lower right end appears also to have some late C17 or early
C18 fabric.
2 storeys. 3-window range. All C20 fenestration; 2-light casements 2 panes per
light to upper storey and to ground floor right end. 'Hall window of 3 lights, 3
panes per light. Inner room window of 2 lights, 3 panes per light apparently
inserted in blocked doorway, with a further doorway giving direct entry into inner
room to right. C20 door to cross-passage doorway.
Interior: Lower end extensively altered in C20, including blocking up of fireplace
across rear angle. Rear cross-passage doorway formerly to stair turret with
chamfered lintel. C19 4-panelled door to hall. Hall has unchamfered cross ceiling
beam. C19 chimneypiece with small 4-panelled cupboard door to right to hall stack.
Late C17, early C18 chamfered door surround between hall and inner room. Inner room
fireplace has bread oven and chamfered timber lintel with bar and run-out stops,
resting on chamfered timber corbels. C19 joinery principally intact to upper
storey, with one C18 3-panelled door.
Single raised cruck truss, closed to just below collar level above hall/passage
partition, with trenched purlins, diagonally set ridge purlin and morticed and
tenoned collar. To the left of the hall stack the roof structure has been replaced;
the original timbers including some surviving rafters and battens are thoroughly
smoke-blackened on the hall side, more lightly so over the lower end.

Listing NGR: SS6476016689

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26400605

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

• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House