Little Barwick

This is a house, originally likely a farmhouse, dating to around the late 15th century, with significant alterations in the early 17th, 19th, and 20th centuries. It is constructed of rendered rubble and cob walls, with a thatched roof, hipped to the rear wing and gabled at each end. There are two brick stacks at the gable ends.

The original layout is not entirely clear due to later modifications, but it likely began as a two-room plan, open to the roof over a tile hall at the right-hand end. The left-hand room may have been originally floored or could be a 17th-century addition acting as a parlour. During the 17th century, the house was floored and stacks were added to each end; a central axial stack likely existed, though its impact on the room arrangement remains unclear. An 18th-century stable or animal shed was added behind the left-hand room. In the 19th century, the house was divided into two cottages, later reverting to a single property, with internal partitions likely altered in the late 20th century. There is also the possibility the house once extended further to the left.

The front facade features a regular three-window arrangement of 20th-century casements without glazing bars. A 19th-century plank and glazed door is centrally positioned beneath a gabled hood. An outbuilding wing extends behind the left-hand end, and a 20th-century lean-to addition is at the rear of the house.

Inside, the right-hand room has a large fireplace with a chamfered wooden lintel featuring straight-cut stops, rebuilt brick jambs, and a brick oven in the right-hand side. The left-hand room contains a high-quality 17th-century beamed ceiling with two ovolo-moulded cross beams, jewelled stops, and molded edges to the joists. However, in the recess for the window, the joists are chamfered with pyramid stops. The fireplace here has an ovolo-moulded wooden lintel and a cloam oven on the left-hand side.

The original roof structure over the right-hand side of the house remains, consisting of two heavy cruck timbers with morticed cranked collars, threaded purlins, and diagonal ridge with triangular strengthening blocks. The original common rafters are also present, all heavily smoke-blackened, with some original sooted thatch preserved. A full-height cob wall internally is blackened on the hall side. The roof of the left-hand end is inaccessible.

The significance of this house lies in its preservation of medieval cruck trusses, which are relatively uncommon in Devon compared to the more prevalent jointed cruck structures, and its retention of good-quality 17th-century features.