Lower West Coombe Farmhouse

Lower West Coombe Farmhouse is a longhouse, originally built in the early 16th century with alterations made in the 17th and 18th centuries. The building is constructed partly of granite ashlar and partly of granite rubble. Most of the granite ashlar work survives on the shippon extending over approximately half the gable end and most of the north-west front, with some ashlar work also visible on the front of the inner room, though the house part has been rendered. The roof is slate over the house and corrugated iron over the shippon, both gable-ended. There are three chimney stacks: the left-hand axial stack is small, a granite rubble stack with shallow granite capping; the middle axial hall stack is larger, a granite rubble stack with dripmoulds and tapering granite capping stones; the right-hand gable end stack is stone at the base with a dripmould, then a brick shaft above.

The original plan was the basic longhouse arrangement of shippon, through passage, hall and inner room. The original gable end arched doorway to the shippon is an unusual feature whose purpose is unclear; it may have served to muck out the shippon, facilitated by its height above ground level. The inner room was originally unheated with a chamber above jettied into the open hall, separated by a closed truss at the first floor partition. The hall originally had a central hearth with smoke drifting up into the roof; the fact that the shippon also has a smoke-blackened truss suggests that the partition between house and shippon either was not full height or was not solid. The cross passage was presumably divided from the hall by a low partition.

Probably in the early 17th century the hall was at least partially floored over. The hall ceiling has a richly moulded cross beam with joists to the higher side similarly moulded, whereas those to the lower side are more widely spaced and simply moulded. One explanation might be that the hall was ceiled in two stages forming a further internal jetty, though there is no physical evidence for this. Alternatively, the difference in joists may represent the differing status of the lower and upper ends of the hall with a higher status dais end. The stack and hall fireplace are contemporary with the ceiling. Probably later in the 17th century, the front and rear walls at the centre of the building were rebuilt thinner, necessitating corbels to carry the hall ceiling. Probably in the 18th century, one bay of the shippon adjoining the house was converted to domestic use forming a parlour on the ground floor and bedroom above, with a solid wall inserted to divide them from the shippon and a chimneystack incorporated with a parlour fireplace. Probably in the 19th century an outshot was added at the rear of the hall as a scullery or wash-house.

The building is two storeys. The house front is asymmetrical with a two-window frontage, the shippon at the lower left-hand end in the same line. The windows are two- and three-light late 19th or early 20th century casements with glazing bars. There is a small single light and pane window to the front of the inner room at the right. An almost central doorway to the passage has a late 19th or early 20th century plank door above which is a 20th century gabled porch roof supported on wooden posts. The shippon has a doorway to the ground floor integral with the ashlar stonework. At the shippon gable end is a round-headed granite arched doorway, chamfered with pyramid stops, integral with the ashlar stonework. At the rear, the shippon has a ground floor doorway to the left opposite the one at the front. To its left the house has an outshut behind the hall and passage of granite rubble with corrugated iron roof. To the higher gable end is a further cow shed.

The interior contains a number of high quality early features and five original roof trusses. Over the house the principal rafters have triangular strengthening blocks beneath each apex; the open trusses all have curved feet. The closed truss framing the partition to the inner room chamber is smoke-blackened on the hall side. This smoke-blackening extends as far as the shippon central truss. Only vestigial traces remain of the second and fourth trusses, which have been cut off by the hall and lower end stacks. The third truss over the lower end of the passage survives virtually intact, with threaded purlins and a slightly cambered collar morticed into the principal rafters. The ridge has been removed but was diagonally set, resting in a V-notch at the apex of the trusses. The roof truss surviving in the shippon has threaded purlins but no strengthening block, and the morticed collar has been removed. On the ground floor the shippon has two heavy cross beams with worn chamfers. At the upper end of the hall is an internal jetty consisting of curved and chamfered joists projecting into the hall, carrying a cross beam. The hall ceiling is of particularly good quality for a moorland farmhouse, consisting of one main cross beam with ovolo and fillet mould square stopped, with ovolo moulded joists to its higher side with hollow step and notch stops. To the lower side of the beam the joists are chamfered with the same stops, with trimmer joists in front of the fireplace which might possibly represent a heat hatch to the room above. The hall fireplace has a monolithic granite jamb to the right and the left-hand jamb is rebuilt, reusing dressed stone consisting of granite blocks with a roll moulding on top and the lintel set back from the front; the whole projects further forward than the right-hand jamb. The lintel is partly concealed and charred, but a mortice in its soffit suggests it too is reused. The partition between hall and inner room is a solid wall. The doorway has a heavy square-headed wooden frame with chamfered jambs whose run-out stops come before they reach the lintel, which is also chamfered with masons mitres; to the left this chamfer extends beyond the jamb. This suggests the timbers have been reused, possibly from a wooden screen.

This is an important, relatively unaltered survival of a high quality longhouse with a complex structural history and several unusual and puzzling features. With the number of surviving longhouses on Dartmoor much diminished, the preservation of this house with its features intact is important, as it exemplifies a further development of the basic longhouse form.