Higher Tor Farmhouse

WIDECOMBE-IN- SX 67 SE THE-MOOR 5/172 Higher Tor Farmhouse 23.8.55

GV II*

House, formerly a longhouse. Late medieval, with additions. Badly damaged by fire in 1982, but has been carefully restored. Granite rubble. Thatched roof, hipped at left-hand end; added range to right is part-slated and part-covered with corrugated iron. Granite chimneystack with tapered top (heating former hall) on ridge towards right-hand end. 3-room and through-passage plan, the former shippon occupying the lower room to left. The plan is highly unusual for Devon in having its hall fireplace at the upper end, instead of backing on to the through-passage; the inner room, to right, has no fireplace. In front of the hall is a lean-to projection, probably a later addition. 2 storeys; lean-to single-storeyed. House part is 2 windows wide; all windows have C20 wood casements. Stone entrance porch with pent roof. Former shippon has separate door with plain granite lintel; ventilation slit to left of it. Addition at right-hand end seems to have been a linhay, judging by the granite post in the centre. To right of this is a gabled projection with a flight of old stone steps in front. Interior : front door has a cambered wood lintel internally. Stone wall between passage and hall. Latter has fireplace with splayed granite jambs and ovolo-moulded wood lintel carved with the initials and date RH 1632; oven in back of fireplace. Upper-floor beams over hall are chamfered with straight-cut stops; joists have scratch mouldings. Door to inner room has cranked wooden head. Stair to upper floor is on rear side of stack; bottom step is of granite. Roof retains 4 raised cruck trusses, 1 over the shippon and 3 over the hall; the feet of the shippon crucks reach almost to the ground. The crucks, ridge and common rafters are of primitive appearance, being merely roughly trimmed tree-trunks. The blades do not meet at the apex, but are linked by a yoke passing through each blade a little way below the top, this carrying the ridge; the yoke is held in position by a peg passing vertically through it each side, just beyond the outer edge of the blade. The thatch formerly had a layer of wattles on the underside, both these and the roof-timbers being blackened from the use of an open hearth. Presumably, therefore, this originated as a single-storeyed structure, the hall stack and upper floor probably being inserted in 1632. The house was recorded while it was still an unconverted longhouse. It is discussed (with a plan) in 1) M W Barley, The English Farmhouse and Cottage, 1961, p.110 (fig 17B), 2) E Mercer, English Vernacular Houses, 1975, p.151 (no. 90).

Listing NGR: SX6978272606