Old Pizwell Farmhouse

Old Pizwell Farmhouse

An unoccupied farmhouse now in partial use as a farm building, dating from the early 16th century with substantial rebuilding and extension in the 19th century. The building stands as part of a traditional moorland hamlet and is one of three surviving early longhouses on the site.

The structure is built of granite rubble with walls supporting a gable-ended roof of corrugated iron and wood shingle. Two granite stacks are present: the axial hall stack dates to the 16th or 17th century and is constructed of ashlar with a dripcourse and tapering cap, while the gable-end rubble stack is considerably later.

The building follows a longhouse plan with a shippon (livestock byre) to the right, a through passage, the hall, and an inner room to the left. The early 16th-century origins suggest the building may originally have been open to the roof with a central hearth and lathe hall, though no direct evidence remains. The hall stack backs onto the passage, with a doorway at its front suggesting a former newel staircase may have occupied a projection here. The inner room appears substantially rebuilt in the 19th century and is of equal size to the hall, with direct entry creating a symmetrical front to the higher end. Along the rear wall, three separate outshuts have been added, probably at various stages during the 18th and 19th centuries. The shippon continues to perform its original function despite the house being uninhabited.

Externally, the house presents two storeys, with the single-storey shippon (formerly with loft) to the right. The front elevation shows a roughly regular arrangement of two windows with 19th-century fixed small-paned lights, and a loading door on the first floor to the left. A central doorway serves the main entrance. A lean-to at the right end of the house may incorporate the lower part of a former stair turret and adjoins a lean-to porch at the front of the passage, which contains a wide doorway with a 19th-century plank door behind it. A doorway to the right of the porch provides entry to the shippon. The gable-end wall of the shippon retains characteristic slits: one in the gable and three below. At the rear, the outshuts extend from the lower end of the shippon almost to the higher end of the house, with a break at the rear of the passage.

Inside, the rebuilt inner room features an open fireplace with a plain granite lintel and granite jambs. The hall preserves its early fireplace with a slightly cambered chamfered granite lintel and rough granite jambs, with a substantial chamfered cross beam incorporating hollow step stops. A blocked doorway adjoining the fireplace on the front wall likely led formerly to stairs. The passage retains an original shouldered-head wooden doorframe giving access to the hall. The fireplace back facing the passage is constructed of ashlar blocks with a plinth. On the lower side of the passage, a cob wall rises to head height, topped by a substantial cross beam. Directly above this stands the only surviving original roof truss: a raised or upper cruck with morticed cranked collar, trenched purlins, diagonal ridge, and triangular strengthening block. The remainder of the roof was completely renewed in the 20th century.

Pizwell is one of the 17 Ancient Tenements of the Forest of Dartmoor, first mentioned in documents in 1260, and this farmhouse is one of three early longhouses that together form a moorland hamlet surviving in unaltered form.