MEM23814 - Higher Combe or Highercombe (Building)

A farmstead is shown on the Tithe Map for Dulverton, grouped around a central domestic building at SS 9045 3050 (recorded as MSO10830) and labelled "Higher Coombe". The land is recorded under parcel reference 420 and includes two C shaped ranges of buildings centred around SS 9037 3051 and SS 9036 3048, separated by a road through the site, and a large pond at SS 9041 3050, fed by a water course routed from the north. The group appears to have been set out as a designed landscape. The Tithe Apportionment lists land parcel 420 as "Highercombe Homestead", owned by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland and occupied by Richard Clarke. The site is listed as part of numerous lands he occupied and is grouped under the name "Highercombe and Millbrook Farms". [1] By the time the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map was surveyed, the southern C shaped range had been demolished (although the boundary of the buildings is still preserved in modern land boundaries) and some small buildings constructed to the northwest at SS 9033 3049. The northern C shaped range appears to have been altered to form a more formal square range of farm buildings with a yard in the centre. A further group of buildings around a yard, centred at SS90433052, was built near to the house and presumably were used as ancillary domestic buildings. The pond is still depicted and a well is also shown at SS 9045 3056. The farm buildings to the southwest were labelled "Higher Combe" and the main house and ancillary buildings were labelled "Rookery". [2] The arrangement shown on the 1st Edition map is repeated on the 2nd Edition map. [3] Since the 2nd Edition map was surveyed, the small buildings on the southern side of the road at SS 9033 3049 have been demolished, as has much of the square range of farm buildings at SS 9037 3051; only the western side of the range still appears to be extant, which modern Ordnance Survey data states is named "Little Highercombe". The pond has also been removed, with two new ponds now being shown at SS 9038 3059 and SS90433045, along the same water course. The main house and ancillary buildings, however, are still extant, apparently in a similar layout depicted on historic mapping and now labelled "Highercombe". Various other small buildings have also been constructed around the periphery of the site. [4] The farm was visited as part of the Exmoor Farmsteads survey in April 1997 but it was noted that the farm buildings had been altered. It was described as a "crucial site on a corner on the road". [5]