Stinhall Cottage Including Garage Adjoining To East

House, formerly a farmhouse. Probably early 16th century with major 16th and 17th century improvements, modernised around 1970. The building is mostly constructed of large blocks of granite ashlar laid to courses with some granite rubble patching. It has granite stacks, two of which retain their original ashlar chimney shafts, and a thatched roof.

The house follows a 3-room-and-through-passage plan, built down the hillside and facing north. The inner room at the right (western) end is terraced into the hillside. Originally an open hall house divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire, it was progressively floored over with inserted fireplaces during the 16th and 17th centuries. The inner room is small and unheated, probably the dairy before around 1970. The master chamber above has an end stack (now disused). The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage, with an unusual stone staircase against the rear wall. The service end room has an end stack and, although the floor level is much lower than the passage, shows no evidence of former use as a shippon. Dr Alcock identifies it as possibly a workshop, perhaps used for dyeing. The doorway through the end wall here may be secondary. The house now has two storeys.

The exterior features an irregular 3-window front of 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The front passage doorway is set left of centre. The ashlar blocks are enormous, and the lintel has a roll moulding along its soffit. It contains what may be an original early 16th-century oak doorframe with a 3-centred arch and chamfered surround, fitted with a 20th-century plank door. The substantial ashlar masonry reveals evidence of the original fenestration. The tall hall window and small inner room window both have soffit-chamfered lintels; the top of the former was blocked when the hall floor was inserted. The roof is now gable-ended to the left and half-hipped to the right.

The rear elevation has fewer windows. The inner room chamber at the uphill end has a 17th-century granite 2-light window with chamfered mullion. The original inner room and hall windows are visible in the ashlar walls, the former occupied by a window even smaller than the original and the latter blocked by the 17th-century stair. At the lower end is possibly a blocked slit window. The rear passage doorway contains a probably 17th-century oak doorframe, square-headed with chamfered surround. The south porch is secondary, with rubble walls topped with cob and a monopitch roof carried down from the main roof. A granite trough projects from the left porch side wall with a window above it. The lower end wall contains another doorway (possibly inserted), now within the adjoining garage.

The interior demonstrates the house's long and complex structural history. The roof structure is wholly original, comprising four bays with hip crucks at each end. Two appear to be side-pegged jointed crucks, whilst that at the upper end is a true cruck. All have slightly cranked collars, yoked apexes carrying a diagonal ridge (Alcock's apex type L1), and butt purlins. The roof, from end to end including the common rafters and underside of the thatch, is smoke-blackened. This indicates the early 16th-century house was entirely open to the roof, divided by low partitions, and heated by an open hearth fire.

The granite ashlar ground floor partition at the upper end of the hall may be original, as it includes an oak doorframe similar to that in the front passage. Shortly afterwards, still in the first half of the 16th century, the lower end was floored. The screen along the lower side of the passage resembles a low partition but includes two doorways together at the rear end; the smaller one, with a door rebate onto the passage, must be a stair door associated with the flooring of this end. It is an oak plank-and-muntin screen with broad planks and chamfered muntins (the stops have worn away). Both doorways are shoulder-headed. The framed first floor partition is infilled with wattle and daub, smoke-blackened on the hall side only.

The timing of the flooring of the inner room/dairy end is unclear, though the chamber was refurbished in the early 17th century when the hall was floored. Dr Alcock argues it might have been floored from the beginning, though notes that if so, the frame must have been at least partly open to allow the hall fire to soot the roof rafters here. Before the hall was floored, a large granite fireplace was inserted against the passage, with a soffit-chamfered oak lintel.

In the early 17th century, the hall was floored over and the inner room chamber refurbished. The hall crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with the remains of step stops. New stairs, built of granite, were provided at the back of the hall; though very tight, they divide against the back wall to rise in both directions. The inner room chamber has a 17th-century fireplace of granite with an oak lintel, hollow-chamfered surround with roll stops, and a niche in the adjacent wall.

The garage extension at the lower end contains a pair of large plank double doors to the front. It is rubble built with a thatched roof hipped at the end. It may once have been a shippon, as evidenced by slit windows in the end wall.

Stinhall Cottage is a very attractive house, even by Dartmoor standards, and is important as an unusually complete late medieval house with an interesting development sequence. Dr Alcock suggests the lower end room was a workshop, possibly for dyeing, using the ancient granite-lined leat which still runs past the front of the house. Stiniel is an exceptionally picturesque Dartmoor hamlet that includes other important listed buildings such as Higher Stiniel and Stinhall. The hamlet has attracted historic interest since its first recorded mention in 1224 as Stennenhalle, meaning hall of stone.