Waye Cottage Including Garden Boundary Walls To South

A house and former Dartmoor longhouse, dating from the late 15th to early 16th century with major improvements in the later 16th and 17th centuries, and a mid-17th-century extension. The attached outbuildings are 19th century. The building is constructed of plastered granite stone rubble with cob forming the upper section, granite stacks (one retaining its original granite ashlar chimney shaft), and a thatch roof.

The building is L-shaped, with the main block facing south and built down the hillslope. It comprises two principal phases of construction. The original downhill (east) section is a three-room-and-through-passage Dartmoor longhouse plan. The shippon and passage at the downhill end are now disused, though the front wall survives to approximately first-floor level. The hall now occupies the right end room, with its stack (inserted in the late 16th to early 17th century) positioned as a right gable-end stack. The small unheated dairy originally at the upper end of the hall was the uphill end room. The original house was open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The hall and inner room were floored over in the early 17th century, and a newel stair with projecting turret was provided at the lower end of the hall, projecting from the front wall.

In the early to mid-17th century, the house was extended uphill and rearranged. A new through-passage was built uphill from the dairy, and a new parlour (the present left end room) was provided, with a gable-end stack and formerly a newel stair alongside. The hall thereafter served as a kitchen. A rear block projects at right angles from the rear of the left room, containing a pumphouse with a chamber above. Behind this is a single-storey range of former pigsties, now brought into domestic use, probably dating to the 19th century but possibly earlier. The end of the pigsties is pointed, resembling a two-centred arch in plan, which has occasioned speculation that it was once a chapel, though no firm evidence supports this.

The house is two storeys. The exterior features an irregular three-window arrangement of 19th and 20th-century casements, the oldest with glazing bars. The parlour window occupies a three-light section of a 17th-century granite-mullioned window with hoodmould; the fourth left-hand light is blocked and it has one chamfered mullion. Both mullions have been removed from the hall window, which also has a hoodmould. The first-floor windows rise a short distance into the eaves. The present front doorway contains a 20th-century stable-type door and leads into the 17th-century passage. A stair turret projects from the right end of the present house with a gable-ended roof. To the right of the stair turret is the original passage front doorway: a granite two-centred arch with chamfered surround and spur stops. Immediately right of this is a blocked contemporary cow door with a segmental head.

The interior contains notable features. The oldest element is the two-bay roof over the hall and inner room, carried on a face-pegged jointed cruck with a small yoke at the apex (Alcock's apex type L1). It has a hip cruck, a single set of through purlins, and evidence of windbraces, one of which survives. It appears smoke-blackened, though the panels are plastered over. The hall fireplace is constructed of granite ashlar with a soffit-chamfered oak lintel; its side oven has been relined with 19th-century brick. The hall and inner room appear to have been floored in a single process. They are separated by an oak plank-and-muntin screen; the muntins are chamfered with step stops positioned high enough for an upper end bench. The hall crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with step stops, and its front end rests on the lintel of the stair doorway. The 17th-century parlour has a granite ashlar fireplace with a soffit-chamfered oak lintel, which has been raised slightly in height. A curious cupboard alcove is positioned alongside to the left. The roof over this section comprises two bays with an A-frame truss featuring a pegged lap-jointed collar and shaped halvings. The pump room contains a large granite trough. The front garden is enclosed by a probably 19th-century low granite rubble wall.

Waye Cottage is both attractive and of considerable interest as a well-preserved Dartmoor longhouse with some early features of good craftsmanship.