Higher Horselake Farmhouse

Higher Horselake Farmhouse is a grade II* listed farmhouse near Chagford on Dartmoor. It dates from the late 15th to early 16th century, with significant improvements made during the later 16th and 17th centuries, a mid-17th-century extension, and modernisation in 1982.

The building is constructed of granite stone rubble laid to rough courses with large roughly-dressed quoins. It has granite stacks with original granite ashlar chimney shafts and a thatch roof, with corrugated iron covering the outshots.

The house follows a 3-room-and-through-passage plan, built across a hillslope with the rear terraced into it. It faces north-east with a small unheated service room at the left (south-eastern) end. The hall contains a large axial stack backing onto the passage, with a projecting rear newel turret at the lower end. The inner room (parlour) at the right (north-western) end has an end stack with a newel stair rising alongside the fireplace. The house originally began as a 2-room-and-through-passage plan with an open roof and central open hearth fire. During the later 16th and 17th centuries the hall fireplace was inserted and the house progressively floored. The parlour was added in the mid-17th century, probably when the hall was floored. The building is now 2 storeys throughout with secondary outshots across the rear.

The exterior features an irregular 4-window front with 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars, the first-floor windows rising into the eaves. The front passage doorway is set left of centre in a segmental-headed arch with a probably 17th-century oak doorframe and oak plank door with strap hinges and oak lock housing. A secondary doorway to the inner room at the right end contains a 19th-century plank door. The junction between the original house and the 17th-century parlour extension is clearly visible. The roof is half-hipped to the left and gable-ended to the right.

The interior contains the building's most significant feature: the late 15th to early 16th-century roof structure over the original part of the house (hall, passage and service room). This 3-bay roof is constructed of unusually large-scantling timbers. The left of the two trusses is completely exposed. The front principal is a raised true cruck and the rear principal is a raised face-pegged jointed cruck. The lower sections of the right (hall) truss are plastered over, though the curving shape indicates similar cruck construction. Both trusses have cambered collars and at their apex a yoke carrying a square-set ridge (Alcock's apex type H). A hip cruck exists at the service end, with single sets of trenched purlins throughout. The entire structure is thoroughly smoke-blackened, confirming the house was originally open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire.

The hall stack, probably inserted in the late 16th to early 17th century, contains a large granite fireplace with a plain oak lintel. The hall crossbeam is now boxed in with no carpentry detail exposed in the passage or service room.

The parlour extension is wholly mid-17th century. At the upper end of the hall is a 17th-century oak plank-and-muntin screen, exposed only on the parlour side, with chamfered muntins bearing scroll-nick stops and a central vertical recessed strip on each. The granite fireplace has an ovolo-moulded and run-out stopped oak lintel with an inserted 19th-century oven. The crossbeam here is also boxed in. This parlour end has a 2-bay roof carried on a clean A-frame truss with pegged lap-jointed collar.

Higher Horselake Farmhouse is an important and architecturally attractive Dartmoor farmhouse, with its late medieval roof virtually complete. It forms part of a group with associated farm buildings, which are also listed.