Stinhall

House, former farmhouse. Dated 1690 but with an apparently earlier core, modernised and enlarged circa 1984. Constructed from granite stone rubble with granite ashlar quoins and granite stacks, all retaining their original granite ashlar chimney shafts; one stack has moulded coping. The roof is thatch over the main structure, with slate covering the refurbished rear block. The building is 2 storeys.

The main block faces north and comprises essentially the 1690 house with a 2-room plan and central through passage. The left (eastern) room functioned as the kitchen and service room, featuring an end stack with a winder stair rising alongside. The right (western) room served as the hall and parlour, with an axial stack backing onto the passage and a chamber above with its own end stack. A 2-storey dairy outshot extends to the rear of the kitchen. Originally a stair appears to have projected to the rear of the hall, but the present stair is part of the circa 1984 refurbishment. At that time, a range of former agricultural buildings projecting at right angles to the rear were modernised and converted to domestic use.

The exterior presents a 3-window front based on a symmetrical design. The central front passage doorway, now containing a 20th-century door, is surmounted by a granite hoodmould and a datestone carved with the initials RS and the date 1690. This is flanked by two contemporary granite 3-light windows with chamfered mullions, each with hoodmoulds and carved labels—4-leaf florettes to the left window and fleur-de-lys to the right. All three first floor windows are now 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The roof is gable-ended.

The interior reveals features suggesting construction spanning different periods. The hall and parlour crossbeam appears to date from the early rather than late 17th century, with soffit-chamfering and step stops. The large granite fireplace contains a plain soffit-moulded oak lintel and a side oven. The back of the stack in the passage is ashlar-built with a soffit-chamfered cornice. The kitchen and service room features appear more consistent with 1690, with a roughly-finished crossbeam. The granite rubble fireplace here has a replacement lintel and a side oven larger than that in the other room, with a timber winder stair rising to the right. The first floor contains only 19th and 20th-century joinery detail. The roof structure over the right room was replaced in the 20th century, but the remainder probably dates from 1690 and is carried by A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars. Buried within a partition over the lower side of the passage is a probably early 17th-century truss at a lower level, with only its apex visible in the roofspace. The presence of a formerly lower roof is further suggested by the dressed quoins on the left (eastern) end wall, which stop short of the present wall top. The consistency of the ashlar chimney shafts with a 1690 date suggests the present roofline dates from that year. Other features earlier than 1690 may survive behind later plaster.

Stinhall presents an interesting farmhouse of layered construction history. The 1690 date appears to commemorate a major refurbishment of a house at least as old as the early 17th century. The house may originally have been late medieval with a 3-room-and-through-passage plan, with the inner room end at the uphill western end demolished when the house was rearranged in 1690. Stiniel is an exceptionally picturesque Devon hamlet also containing two other late medieval farmhouses: Higher Stiniel and Stinhall Cottage. The hamlet has attracted historic interest since it was first recorded in 1224 as Stennenhalle, meaning hall of stone.