Hillmans

Hillmans is a house located on the north side of Fore Street in Winkleigh, dating from the early to mid 17th century, with possible earlier origins and 18th-century extensions. The building features rendered cob and rubble walls and a gable-ended thatch roof, supported by two rubble stacks with dripcourses, one at the gable end and one axial.

The layout consists of a two-room-and-through-passage front range, where the left-hand room is heated by a fireplace in its end wall, and the right-hand room is heated by an axial stack backing onto the passage. There are two long rear wings extending behind either end of the house; the left-hand wing is at least partly from the 17th century, as indicated by doorways of that period leading into it from the house on the first floor, suggesting it had a domestic purpose. The other wing was likely used as outbuildings and is more probably from the 18th century.

The exterior is two storeys high with an asymmetrical three-window front featuring 20th-century three-light casements without glazing bars on the first floor. Below and to the right, there is a 19th-century 16-pane bay window with a modillion cornice. The central entrance has a Tudor-style door, and to the left is a 19th-century double shop front with a projecting cornice supported on brackets.

Inside, the ground floor has few original features, but the original fireplaces are likely still behind 20th-century blocking. On the first floor, three 17th-century chamfered doorframes remain, with two leading into the left-hand rear wing. The roof timbers are insubstantial straight principals, likely dating from the 18th or 19th century.