Higher Uppacott Uppacott

Higher Uppacott and Uppacot is a Grade I listed longhouse in Widecombe-in-the-Moor, dating from the late medieval period. The building has subsequently been divided into two houses.

The main structure is a longhouse constructed of granite rubble, with a three-room and through-passage plan. To the right of the passage is a shippon (cattle shed), no longer in use for livestock, and to the left are the hall and inner room. A wing was added to the north-east, probably in the 17th century, serving as a parlour or kitchen and now forming a separate house called Uppacot. A former outbuilding was added to the south-west, probably in the 18th or early 19th century.

The main range has a thatched roof with half-hips at either end, while the former outbuilding is slated. At the centre of the ridge stands a granite ashlar chimneystack with stone weatherings, its cap being 20th century. The wing has another granite ashlar stack with weatherings, retaining its original tapered cap.

The house-part is three windows wide on the ground storey, with no upper-storey windows on this elevation. The middle window, lighting the former hall, is of granite containing two lights with flat-splay mullions and a straight hood-mould above. The outer windows have plain granite lintels with 19th-century wood casements of two or three panes per light. An old plank door with applied ribs leads to the through-passage, now sheltered by a 20th-century thatched porch on two wooden posts, likely re-used timbers from the house.

The shippon contains two ventilation slits on the front elevation and one on the rear, the latter now blocked. The gable-wall to the right has three further ventilation slits at ground level and one above, with a drain outlet at the base. The shippon is remarkable among surviving longhouses in having no separate entrance. The building is two storeys high, with the shippon formerly having a loft.

The rear wall of the main range is now concealed by a stone lean-to with a corrugated asbestos roof, built as an outhouses structure but partly converted to living accommodation in the 20th century with rendered walls and modern windows. A 1950 photograph shows this lean-to originally had a slated roof. The rear doorway to the through-passage has a chamfered, round-headed wood frame with shouldered door jamb.

The wing contains small-paned wood casements, some 19th and some 20th century. The former outbuilding is heavily windowed with 20th-century small-paned wood casements. Its south-east gable-wall retains original character with two ventilation slits at ground level and one above; to the right of the upper slit is a blocked loading door with wooden lintel. The north-east side of the wing and outbuilding, visible from the road, has no windows, though there is a small two-light window in the adjacent gable-wall of the main range.

Interior features are substantial and complex. The shippon contains a well-made central drain lined with large granite blocks, with feeding-troughs defined by thin stones with holes for tethering-posts along each long wall. The loft floor has been removed but plain, heavy cross-beams remain. A 19th-century wood partition with horizontal planking separates the shippon from the passage.

Close to the passage is a raised cruck-truss with the tops of the blades held apart by a yoke designed to carry a square-set ridge. There are mortices for a collar but no slots for purlins. The truss is not obviously smoke-blackened, though a piece of blackened ridge-beam is positioned between it and the hall stack. The walling at the west foot has been disturbed, but the east foot remains in its original slot on a large padstone. A truss of this type could date to the 14th or early 15th century.

On the house side of the passage, the hall stack (now whitened) is of granite ashlar blocks with a chamfered plinth and cornice. Above the doorway into the hall appears the head-beam of a plank-and-muntin partition. The hall fireplace has hollow-moulded granite jambs and a chamfered wood lintel with step-stops. Above the lintel are two shaped granite pieces designed to fit under a relieving arch (now plastered over), suggesting the stack was inserted while the hall was still open to the roof. There is no oven at the back of the fireplace.

The upper-floor beams are chamfered with one bar-stop visible; the joists are chamfered with step-stops. The main cross-beam runs into the centre of a blocked opening in the rear wall, set high and rising above the existing ceiling-level, which was the hall window when the space was open to the roof. There are no old joists in the space in front of the fireplace, suggesting a spit mechanism may have risen through the ceiling at this point. The two-light granite window in the front wall has a loop halfway and integral with the centre mullion, possibly designed for a bar to close shutters.

Above the hall are two trusses with feet designed like primitive jointed crucks; the principal rafter feet are pegged and tenoned to short struts against the wall-faces, these struts sinking into the walls. The trusses have threaded purlins and ridge. The truss over the centre of the hall has a tenoned collar; that over the division between hall and inner room has a collar with notched and shaped ends sunk into halvings in the principal rafter faces. Both trusses, their purlins, ridge, thatching-spars, and the underside of the thatch are smoke-blackened, indicating the roof over the inner room (though partly rebuilt) was originally the same. The roof is clearly medieval though different from the shippon roof; the halved collar typically a post-medieval feature suggests a possible early 16th-century date. Nailed to the truss over the division between hall and inner room is a close-studded partition, probably dating to around 1600. The studs are grooved down the sides and still contain original horizontal laths for mud infill. At the east end is a square-headed door-frame with scratch mouldings. The ground-storey wall below is of stone, but its relationship to the timber-framing is unclear.

The wing contains a large gable-fireplace at ground level with monolithic granite jambs and plain wood lintel, without an oven in the back. On the upper floor is a smaller fireplace with chamfered granite jambs and chamfered wood lintel, the latter with a scroll-stop at the right-hand end. The roof-trusses are plain; though darkened, they are probably not smoke-blackened.

The main range (Higher Uppacott) is owned by Dartmoor National Park.