Gorwyn Farmhouse

Gorwyn Farmhouse is a building of probable 15th-century origin, with alterations and extensions dating to the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. It was modernized around 1960. The farmhouse, now a house, is constructed of plastered cob on rubble footings, with stacks of dressed volcanic stone and granite, some topped with 19th-century brick, and a thatched roof. Originally arranged as a three-room-and-through-passage plan with an inner room at the north-west end, it incorporates a 17th-century wing behind the inner room, an 18th-century extension to the service end, and a contemporary rear block. The building is now two storeys throughout, facing south-west.

The front has five windows, featuring 20th-century wooden casements, with 2, 3, or 4 lights of varying sizes and glazing bars. A chamber window above the hall rises into the thatch. A 20th-century open-sided timber porch with a hipped thatched roof shelters the central door. The main roof is half-hipped to the left and hipped to the right, with a 16th-century dressed granite stack projecting above the ridge.

The interior remains well-preserved and reflects a long and complex structural history. Smoke-blackened roof timbers and thatch over the hall, inner room, and passage suggest an original house heated by an open hearth fire and divided by low partitions. Two trusses survive over the hall. One is a plain, face-pegged jointed cruck resting on wooden plates 0.75 meters above ground level. The other is unusually elaborate, featuring chamfered arch-bracing below the collar and evidence of a removed carved boss at the apex. The cruck posts have decorative false corbels on chamfered shafts, with evidence of a removed carving (possibly an angel) in the lower rough-faced area. In the later 16th century, full-height cob cross walls were inserted at the upper end of the hall and lower side of the passage. The inner room was floored with plain joists, a chamber was created over the passage resting on a stop-chamfered spine beam with run-out stops, the hall fireplace (dressed volcanic stone with an oak lintel) was inserted, and a small oak flat-arched door to the right of the fireplace may have led to stairs and a passage chamber. The service room was probably floored around the same time, although no original beams are exposed, and the granite fireplace was rebuilt in the 20th century. In the mid-17th century, the hall was floored with moulded beams. The 19th-century kitchen block has a stone fireplace with an oak lintel and a rebuilt brick side oven. A second rear block, apparently rebuilt as a service wing – possibly stables – was converted into self-contained accommodation in the 20th century, with a south-east front matching the main front. A pitched-stone courtyard at the rear is enclosed by wings and a high cob wall with a thatched top. The farmhouse is considered important due to its well-preserved early structure; the decorative false corbels and shafts of the hall cruck-posts are considered unique in Devon.