Lowton Farmhouse

Farmhouse dating from the early to mid-16th century with alterations from the late 16th and early 17th centuries and the 18th century. The walls are rendered granite rubble, and the roof is thatched, hipped to the left and gabled to the right end, raised above the right-hand first floor windows. A rendered gable end stack to the lower end is probably brick, while the axial stack has a brick shaft on a granite base.

The house follows a complex 3-room-and-through-passage plan with a heated lower room to the right, a hall with a fireplace at the unusual position of the inner end, and a formerly unheated inner room. Originally the hall and inner room were open to the roof with a central hearth in the hall, while the lower room always had a chamber above. In the late 16th or early 17th century, this lower room received a decorative plaster ceiling indicating high status, and both the inner room and hall were then ceiled. Probably in the 18th century, the front wall was built out at the higher end, forming a bay at the higher end of the hall and enlarging the inner room, possibly to incorporate a staircase. Rear outshuts behind the hall passage date from probably the late 19th century. A barn extension at right angles extends behind the lower room.

The two-storey front elevation is asymmetrical with four windows, probably of 20th-century date, consisting of 2-light casements with glazing bars. A 20th-century plank door with part glazing sits to the right of centre. To the left of centre the wall splays forward and continues at that plane up to the left gable end, with windows at both ground and first floor levels in this splayed section. At the far left is a single-storey 20th-century wing with a gable end chimney. The rear shows the house recessed at the inner room, with an outshut behind the passage and hall. At the point where the barn joins the house wall is an angled brick stair projection.

The interior contains unusually fine features. The passage is flanked by plank and muntin screens with chamfered muntins featuring high hollow step stops. On the hall side is a chamfered head beam. The hall ceiling has a heavy central cross beam, chamfered with bar and hollow step stop. A half beam above the fireplace is identical, but where the bay begins it has been extended. The hall fireplace has a chamfered wooden lintel with traces of a straight cut stop to the left.

The roof over the inner room consists of two trusses with lapped and pegged collars. On the other side of the hall stack are three original trusses, very substantial with cambered collars morticed into them and threaded purlins. The first truss, positioned over the lower end of the hall, is a closed truss lightly smoke-blackened on the hall side with wattle and daub infilling and stave holes to the collar. Although the original trusses over the rest of the hall and inner room have been removed, the purlins and ridge remain and are lightly smoke-blackened. On the other side of the closed truss, the roof timbers are clean. Over the lower end in the roof space is a moulded plaster ceiling inserted over the lower room chamber, which has had another ceiling inserted beneath it so is now completely concealed from the rest of the house. The plaster ceiling features a central geometrical design of moulded ribs, a moulded cornice and moulded edges to the plastered trusses. This ceiling is particularly unusual for a farmhouse on the Dartmoor fringes and survives in fairly good condition.

The significance of this house lies not only in the survival of unusual and good quality features such as the plaster ceiling and the screens passage, but also in its unusual plan and developmental variation on the typical 3-room-and-through-passage layout.