Lizwell Farmhouse

Lizwell Farmhouse is a building of probable medieval origins, with significant alterations and additions spanning the 16th, 18th, and 19th centuries. It is situated in Widecombe-in-the-Moor on Dartmoor. The farmhouse may have originally been a longhouse. The older part of the main range may be medieval, while the right-hand end was rebuilt in the 18th century, possibly as a shippon (animal shelter). The left-hand end of the front wall has patches of old roughcast rendering over rubble. The roofs are covered in real slates, except for the oldest part which has asbestos slates. The rear wing has a hipped roof, slightly higher than the rest, with handmade ridge tiles and low crestings. Several substantial granite ashlar blocks are visible, particularly in the rear wing. There are three chimney stacks: a large one on the centre of the main ridge, smaller stacks on each gable, with a brick shaft added to the left-hand stack, and a very large stone stack in the rear wall of the older part of the main range.

The interior layout consists of a cross-passage leading to two rooms to the left (likely the former hall and inner rooms) and two further rooms rebuilt in the 18th century to the right. A single-room wing, probably a parlour with a high-quality chamber above, was added in the early 16th century and sits at right-angles to the hall. The unusual positioning of the chimney stacks, with the hall fireplace located on the rear wall, suggests the possibility of a second fireplace for heating the parlour. Another stack on the right-hand side of the cross-passage may have been inserted to heat a kitchen in the upper section of the former shippon, a common modification in Dartmoor longhouses.

The two-storey front elevation has six windows. The older part of the front has three windows with 8-paned sash windows, many with old glass. Slate-hanging features between the storeys of the two left-hand bays. An old plank door is located in the right-hand bay of the older part of the farmhouse, leading to the cross-passage. Above the door is a 20th-century wooden hood with a slated pent roof. A straight joint indicates a former division in the wall, and a granite block carved with the date 1630 and two partially illegible initials ('R E' with a heart between them) is positioned above this joint. The rebuilt right-hand section has 19th-century 3-light casements with three panes per light; the ground-floor windows have flat arches with roughly-cut voussoirs. A doorway with a plain granite lintel sits between these windows, and fragments of medieval stone window tracery have been re-set above it. A 16th-century granite window of three lights, with removed mullions but retaining hollow-moulded round-arched heads and a heavy hood-mould, is found on the north-east wall of the rear wing. Internally, the ground-floor room of the wing has broad, chamfered upper-floor beams. The room above appears to have roof-trusses with arch-braced collar-beams, according to the occupants. The remainder of the interior has not been inspected.