Dartmoor National Park Authority

Dartmoor's Historic Buildings

The number and proportion of historic buildings within the National Park is high as there has been only modest amounts of modern development within this protected landscape for many years. The contribution these old structures make to the landscape is correspondingly strong, as it remains substantially undiluted. This presence is intensified by the materials used in their construction; like most historic buildings they have a strong local identity or character born out of both the locally available building materials and the way that these have been used to represent changing traditions, fashions and functions over time.
The dominant building material on the high moor is granite, but around the fringes a range of other building materials have also been used, such as high quality limestone in the south (the Ashburton- Buckfastleigh area), or cob, a mixture of subsoil and straw in the northeast corner (in and around Dunsford). Thatch has been used for roofing for hundreds of years; in the earliest surviving examples, rye straw was used, but later combed wheat reed became the traditional material. The dominant architectural style is vernacular (local traditional style without grand architectural pretension). Examples of polite architecture (following national styles and fashions inspired by architects ) are known, though they are more common within the larger settlements.

One of the best known of Dartmoor’s vernacular types is the longhouse, a long low building which humans and animals shared under a single roof, the humans at the higher end the animals at the lower end. They were separated by a passage running across the building which is known as a through or cross passage. The other common medieval farmhouse type was the three-room cross passage house, similar to the longhouse, except that the lower end was occupied by domestic rooms. Some of the oldest of Dartmoor’s farmhouses date back to the middle of the 14th century.

Dartmoor’s historic farmsteads are a very important resource and the National Park Authority has recently concluded a survey of this.  Although many early farmhouses survive many of our farm buildings, as in other places, are late 18th or early 19th century in date and include a wide variety of form: barns, shippons (cattle houses), linhays and stables, as well as the smaller pighouses and ash houses. They are a testament to the changes in agriculture as an outcome of the firstly the agrarian and secondly industrial revolution. Some building types are very particular to Dartmoor, for example ashouses – small commonly round outbuildings in which the farmhouse hearth ashes where collected and then used for fertilization on the farmstead – especially the farm garden and orchard. Others follow regional styles such as the Devon linhays – distinctive two storied open fronted cattle shelters-come-hay stores. However, geology has ensured that these examples are unmistakably Dartmoor.

Within the towns the earliest surviving houses owe their architectural roots to the surrounding rural patterns. However, most town houses are later in date. Much rebuilding occured in the 17th century as a result of Devon’s increasing prosperity based on mercantile activity – especially the cloth trade. Even the Civil War only caused a short term interruption in this pattern. Another factor influencing the numerous rebuilding was fire. The ensuing damage could be very substantial involving many houses and such fires seems to have been quite frequent. Much rebuilding and or refronting has also taken place in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Dartmoor has some fine public buildings, particularly its churches, which are predominantly in the style known as Perpendicular, again reflecting the prosperity enjoyed by Dartmoor in the 15th and 16th centuries due to its strong woollen and tin industries.

Page updated 4 December 2009