Lower Woodhayes Farmhouse

Lower Woodhayes Farmhouse is an early 16th-century farmhouse, significantly altered in the later 16th and 17th centuries and renovated in the late 19th century. The walls are plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with brick stacks and chimney-shafts, and a slate roof, originally thatched.

The farmhouse was initially constructed with a three-room-and-through-passage plan facing south. An unheated inner room, likely a service room, sits at the east end. Adjacent to this is the main hall, which has an axial stack backing onto the passage. The passage is relatively wide and now contains a 19th-century staircase. The lower end parlour has a projecting gable-end stack. The original 16th-century house had a single, open roof space, divided by low partition screens and heated by an open hearth. Around the mid-16th century, the inner room and lower ends were floored over, and full-height crosswalls were built. The hall sides of these crosswalls exhibit smoke-blackening, indicating the continued use of the open hearth at that time. A brick hall stack was likely added in the late 16th or early 17th century and is associated with the flooring of the hall. At this time, the inner room and lower end rooms were widened towards the rear, and the outshuts behind the hall and passage may also date from this period. The lower end stack's date is uncertain. The house is two storeys high.

The exterior has an irregular three-window front with 19th and 20th-century casement windows with glazing bars. The central front doorway is set within a late 19th-century gabled porch with a part-glazed six-panel door. The porch has a timber frame on brick footings, ornamental grilles alongside, and cusped bargeboards. The main roof is gable-ended.

Internally, the farmhouse largely reflects a superficial late 19th-century modernisation, with blocked fireplaces and minimal exposed carpentry. A short section of an oak plank-and-muntin screen is visible on the lower side of the passage. A hall crossbeam features double-ovolo mouldings with run-out stops. The roof is a three-bay structure supported by large, side-pegged cruck timbers heavily sooted from the original open hearth.

A measured ground plan and long section, made in February 1979 by John R L Thorp, are held in the Exeter Museums Archaeological Field Unit archive.