Moorside

Moorside is a house dating from the mid to late 16th century, with improvements made in the late 16th and 17th centuries. It was modernised around 1960 and again in 1986. The building is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with a front wall possibly faced with coursed blocks of granite ashlar. It has a granite ashlar stack and a replacement brick chimneyshaft, with an asbestos slate roof that was formerly thatched.

The house follows a 2-room-and-through-passage plan, facing north-east onto the road and built down the hillslope. The right room was originally the service end and appears to have been unheated; it is now used as a garage and has been slightly extended forwards in the 20th century. The left room is the hall with a large lateral stack projecting from the front. A 20th-century service outshot has been added to the rear of the passage and service end. From its construction, the passage and service end were floored over with two chambers above. The hall was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The hall fireplace was inserted shortly after construction, and the hall was floored in the early or mid-17th century. There was apparently no inner room. The house appears to occupy the full width of its historic burgage property and is flanked by the Oxenham Inn to the right and Nos 1 and 2 Mill House to the left. A locked doorway through the right party wall is thought to be secondary. The house is 2 storeys.

The exterior presents an irregular 3-window front of 20th-century casements with glazing bars, interrupted by the hall stack. A 20th-century flat-roofed porch and garage conceal the centre and right ground floor. The wall is plastered, though a coved eaves cornice suggests the front may be granite ashlar. The roof runs along the building between the adjoining houses.

The interior preserves much of the original structure, though all detail in the service end room and garage is hidden behind 20th-century plasterboard. The lower passage partition is a granite ashlar wall, one stone of which is inscribed "John Smith", and contains a blocked doorway. 19th-century stairs occupy the passage. The passage-hall partition was originally an oak plank-and-muntin screen; the headbeam remains and some panelling towards the rear may survive. The hall fireplace is granite ashlar with a hollow-chamfered surround and has never had an oven. The 17th-century crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with step stops. The original 5-bay roof structure is very complete and includes 2 integral closed trusses with oak-framed crosswalls. The service chamber and hall each have 2 bays with an open true cruck truss with cambered collar. All trusses have carpenters' assembly marks. The hall roof is very lightly smoke-blackened from the short-lived open hearth fire.

South Zeal is exceptional as one of the few medieval boroughs where a significant number of 16th and 17th-century houses still survive. Moorside is an important house in its own right, being a hall house built at the time when chimneystack were being introduced into houses. The open hearth here was apparently short-lived, and the front lateral stack is an unusual feature for this part of Devon. The house appears more urban in character than most of its contemporary neighbours.