Collihole Cottage

Collihole Cottage is a farmhouse that began as a Dartmoor longhouse in the early or mid-16th century, with substantial improvements made in the late 16th and 17th centuries. It was renovated in 1985 when the shippon was converted to domestic use.

The building is constructed of large coursed blocks of granite ashlar with granite stone rubble patching, particularly evident at the shippon end. It has a granite hall stack with a granite ashlar chimney shaft finished with moulded coping. The roof is thatch, though corrugated iron was laid over the shippon. The plan follows the traditional 3-room-and-through-passage arrangement of a longhouse, oriented south-east and built down the hillslope. The small unheated inner room, probably once a dairy, is terraced into the slope at the north-east end. The hall contains a large axial stack backing onto the passage, and an oak winder stair sits in the hall alongside the passage. A rear lateral stack was inserted in the shippon during the 1985 conversion. Originally the hall was open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire; from the late 16th and 17th centuries the house was progressively floored over. Now it is 2 storeys throughout.

The front elevation is irregular with four windows of 19th and 20th century casements with glazing bars, some with exposed oak lintels. First floor windows have thatch eyebrows, and the shippon has a half dormer. The front passage doorway is roughly central and now contains a 20th century door. The roof is half-hipped to the left and gable-ended to the right. Windows have been inserted at both ends. The rear fenestration follows a similar arrangement.

The interior contains features from all major building phases. The oldest is the hall roof, comprising two bays carried on an early 16th century true cruck truss. At the apex is a small yoke (Alcock's apex type L1), which does not directly carry the ridge; instead an inverted triangular blocking piece with a notch in its flat top supports the ridge. The truss is heavily smoke-blackened, indicating the original open-hearth heating and open-to-roof arrangement. The rest of the roof has been replaced with 18th and 19th century A-frame trusses. The hall fireplace dates to the late 16th or early 17th century, built of granite ashlar with a large plain surround. At the upper end of the hall is a probably mid-17th century oak plank-and-muntin screen with shallow mouldings to the muntins. The axial joists over the small inner room oversail the screen to produce an upper end jetty for the inner room chamber. The hall was floored over in the mid or late 17th century with an axial soffit-chamfered beam. The oak winder stair may date from this period. The shippon end was largely rebuilt around 1985; only one roughly-finished and waney crossbeam predates this conversion.

Collihole Cottage forms part of an attractive group with nearby Collihole Farmhouse, its barn, and their associated well heads.