Higher Stiniel Including Garden Walls Adjoining To South

Higher Stiniel including garden walls adjoining to south

House, formerly a farmhouse. Built in the late 15th to early 16th century with major improvements in the 16th and 17th centuries, enlarged in the late 17th century (possibly associated with the date 1686), modernised in the early or mid 19th century and again in 1973. The building has granite rubble walls with original granite ashlar chimney shafts. The roof is thatch, partly reroofed with slate in 1973.

The house follows a 4-room-and-through-passage plan, built down a slight slope and facing south. The inner room at the west end is terraced into the hillside. Originally an open hall house heated by an open hearth fire, it was progressively floored over and fireplaces inserted through the 16th and 17th centuries. The inner room has a slightly projecting end stack, and the hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage. The two service end rooms may originally have been a shippon, though no evidence remains. These rooms are divided by an axial stack serving the room off the passage. This end was refurbished in the late 17th century, and the outer room may be an extension of that time. It was refurbished again in the early or mid 19th century. The house is now two storeys throughout.

The front elevation is regular but not symmetrical, with five windows. The first floor left end (the inner room chamber) has a small 3-light casement with rectangular panes of leaded glass, which is of 19th century date. The other windows in the left end 2-window section under the thatch are 20th century replacement casements with rectangular panes of leaded glass, and at the left end there are similarly glazed French windows. Two blocked ground floor windows are visible in this end wall. Thatch eyebrows sit over the first floor windows. The right end 3-window section has 20th century replacement horned 16-pane sashes under the slate roof. The front passage doorway is nearly central and now contains a 20th century door. A secondary 20th century door is at the right end. All doorways and ground floor windows have 20th century granite lintels. The roof is gable-ended. Since the inner room end is terraced into the slope, there is a doorway to the first floor chamber in the end wall, now containing a 20th century door.

The interior displays work from all main building phases, revealing a long and complex structural history. The oldest apparent feature is the roof over the hall and inner room, erected in the late 15th to early 16th century. The only surviving roof truss has been cut through by the hall stack, but enough remains visible. It is a true, probably raised, cruck with cambered collar and yoked apex carrying the square set ridge (Alcock's apex type H). There is a hip cruck at the inner room end. The purlins and ridge between are original and thoroughly smoke-blackened, indicating that the original house was divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. Another truss apparently existed over the upper end of the hall but has been removed, possibly as early as the first improvement.

Probably in the first half of the 16th century, a rubble crosswall was built at the upper end of the hall. It is nearly full height, and from its top a post rises with a Y-forked top to prop the ridge. This is smoke-blackened, indicating that the open hearth was still in operation in the hall and smoke could spread through to the inner room end. The inner room may have been floored by this time, but its axial beam has unstopped soffit chamfers and is therefore of indeterminate date. If the upper wall truss was removed this early, it caused no structural problems for more than a century. Its position is now marked by a crude late 17th century A-frame with pegged lap-jointed collar.

The hall was given a fireplace in the early 17th century. It is granite with a soffit-chamfered and worn, probably scroll-stopped, oak lintel, and has an oven to the right. In the passage, the back of the fireplace is made of large blocks of granite ashlar with a soffit-chamfered cornice. It is inscribed with the date 1686 and initials RB. The fireplace is earlier than this inscription, which must either commemorate a new owner or, more likely, the refurbishing of the lower end. The hall was floored over at the same time as, or a little later than, the fireplace was inserted. Its crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with step stops. The inner room and service end fireplaces have been rebuilt, so their date cannot be ascertained, but they must have been inserted in the late 16th or 17th century. The only exposed carpentry in the lower end is the roof: a series of late 17th century uncollared principal rafter trusses.

The front garden is terraced into the hillslope. The left western side is revetted by a tall rubble wall attached to the left end of the house. As it returns across the front, it ramps down to a low boundary wall, probably built in the mid or late 19th century.

Higher Stiniel is an interesting and attractive farmhouse situated in an exceptionally picturesque Dartmoor hamlet which contains other important listed buildings, including Stenhall and Stenhall Cottage. The farmhouse may have been a Dartmoor longhouse before the late 17th century, but the evidence is not conclusive. However, it appears to be the oldest house in a hamlet that has attracted historical interest since it was first recorded in 1224 as Stenenhalle, meaning hall of stone.