Disused Farmhouse At Flood

Disused Farmhouse at Flood

This is a farmhouse at Flood, a Dartmoor longhouse now unoccupied and used for agricultural purposes. It dates from the late 16th to early 17th century, with a mid or late 17th century refurbishment of the parlour. The building is constructed of cob on stone rubble footings, though a small section of the front is coursed granite ashlar blocks. Most of the front side has been rebuilt in the 20th century with brick and concrete blocks. There is one cob and one granite stack, both now disused. The roof is covered in corrugated iron, formerly thatch.

The building originally had a four-room-and-through-passage plan, facing east-south-east. Built down a gentle slope, it had at the uphill northern end a parlour with a gable-end stack. Next to this downhill was an unheated dairy between the parlour and hall. The hall contained a newel stair in a stone rubble turret projecting to the rear and had an axial stack backing onto the former passage. A full height crosswall separated the passage from the shippon, which occupied the lower right end on a steeper slope. The rear passage doorway is now blocked. The parlour, dairy and hall have since been knocked together to form an animal byre with a hayloft on the first floor. The house appears to be essentially a single late 16th to early 17th century build with the hall floored from the beginning, though the parlour was refurbished later in the 17th century.

The building is two storeys high. The front has been largely rebuilt and includes three ground floor window apertures and two hayloft loading hatches, none of which can be proved earlier than the 20th century. The dairy window blocks an earlier doorway. There are two original doorways: the left one is the front doorway of the passage and another close by is the cow door to the shippon, both containing old oak plank doors.

The rear wall is mostly original. The blocking of the rear passage doorway is visible, and above it is an original window: a tiny two-light window with triangular headed lights cut from a single slab of oak, never glazed. A similar single light version exists in the stair turret. The parlour chamber has a small single light oak window, possibly late 17th century. The end wall contains a 17th century oak two-light window, together with a drain hole and some blocking of a hayloft loading hatch. The roof is gable-ended to the left, steps down over the shippon and is hipped to the right.

The interior contains considerable original detail despite alterations from its conversion to agricultural use. On the upper side of the passage, behind the granite ashlar back of the stack, is an oak plan-and-muntin screen containing a crank-headed door with chamfered surround. The hall fireplace is granite ashlar with hollow-chamfered jambs and a soffit-chamfered oak lintel, with an inserted or relined 19th century oven. The hall has a three-bay ceiling of soffit-chamfered and step-stopped crossbeams. The joists have always been exposed and the original floorboards are laid parallel with the joists. The passage chamber jetties into the hall flush with the front of the stack, resting on a soffit-chamfered and step-stopped bressumer, though this is not thought earlier than the hall ceiling and more likely represents an allowance for the hillslope. In the rear wall is an oak crank-headed doorway to the timber newel stair and another similar doorway on the first floor. At the upper end of the hall is the head beam of an oak plank and muntin screen with one remaining muntin, unusually mitred to the headbeam. The dairy and parlour have plain carpentry detail. The parlour crossbeam was probably plastered from the beginning. Its fireplace has granite ashlar jambs and plain oak lintel with an inserted oven.

Three side pegged jointed cruck trusses were observed over the hall, passage and dairy. They are clean and probably were plastered over from the beginning. The truss between hall and passage chambers is closed by a partition including an oak plank-and-muntin screen. The lower side of the passage is a full height cob crosswall but includes a section of granite ashlar in the footings. From the passage there is a tiny doorway to the shippon with a plain oak doorframe containing an old plank door. Most of the hayloft crossbeams have been replaced in the 20th century and the roof is entirely 20th century except for one jointed cruck post in the back wall.

This is an important and interesting example of a Dartmoor longhouse, apparently newly built in the late 16th to early 17th century. It lies on the outside but close to the area of Dartmoor longhouses and is a significant example of a cob-built farmhouse in Devon with uncontrovertible proof of its function as a longhouse.