Dartmoor longhouse

The Dartmoor longhouse is a type of traditional home, found on the high ground of Dartmoor, in Devon, England and belong to a wider tradition of combining human residences with those of livestock under a single roof.^[1] The earliest are thought to have been built in the 13th century, and they continued to be constructed throughout the mediaeval period, using local granite.^[2] Many longhouses are still inhabited today (although obviously adapted over the centuries), while others have been converted into farm buildings. Forms of longhouses similar to those on Dartmoor are found in Cornwall,^[3] and in Wales where they are called tyddyn.^{[4] [5]}

Sketch of a 17th century Dartmoor longhouse.

The Dartmoor longhouse consists of a long, single-storey granite structure, with a central 'cross-passage' dividing it into two rooms, one to the left of the cross-passage and the other to the right. The one at the higher end of the building was occupied by the human inhabitants; their animals were kept in the other, especially during the cold winter months. The animal quarters were called the 'shippon' or 'shippen'; a word still used by many locals to describe a farm building used for livestock.

A 1735 Welsh longhouse in the Dartmoor style

Early longhouses would have had no chimney - the smoke from a central fire simply filtered through the thatched roof. Windows were very small or non-existent, so the interior would have been dark. The cross-passage had a door at either end, and with both of these open a breeze was often created which made it an ideal location for winnowing.

The medieval Welsh tale The Dream of Rhonabwy from the 12th or 13th century vividly describes the interior^[6] of "an old pitch black hall":

"Inside they saw a bumpy pitted floor: where there were bumps a man could scarcely stand, so slimy was this floor with cow dung and urine, and where there were holes a man might sink to his instep in the mixture of water and urine, and it was all strewn with holly stems whose tips the cattle had been eating. When they reached the fore-court they found a dusty threadbare floor and an old hag before the fire at one end, and when she was cold she would throw a lapfull of chaff onto the fire, so that it was not easy for any man to put up with the smoke that entered his nostrils. At the other end they saw a yellow ox-skin, and lucky the man who was privileged to sleep on that." ^[7]

This simple floorplan is clearly visible at the abandoned mediaeval village at Hound Tor, which was inhabited from the 13th to the 15th centuries. Excavations during the 1960s revealed four longhouses, many featuring a central drainage channel, and several smaller houses and barns.

In later centuries, the longhouses were adapted and expanded, often with the addition of an upper floor and a granite porch to protect against the elements. Substantial fireplaces and chimneys were also added, and can be seen at many of the surviving Dartmoor longhouses today (see Ancient Tenements). The ownership of an extensive longhouse is regarded as a sign of the relative prosperity of the rural region and longhouses would usually have been occupied by land-owning families rather than tenant peasants who would have occupied much hubler dwellings ^[8].

Higher Uppacott, one of the few remaining longhouses to retain its original unaltered shippon, is a Grade I listed building, and is now owned by the Dartmoor National Park Authority.^[9]

References

1. ^ http://www.historic-cornwall.org.uk/flyingpast/medieval.html#top
2. ^ "The Dartmoor Longhouse Poster". Dartmoor National Park Authority. http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/lab-longpost.pdf. Retrieved 2008-04-01. 
3. ^ Flying through Cornwall's Past: the Medieval Countryside
4. ^ Iorwerth C. Peate "The Welsh House: a study in folk culture", in: Y Cymmrodor; XLVII, London, 1940
5. ^ The Dartmoor Longhouse Poster (pdf)
6. ^ Iorwerth C. Peate "The Welsh House: a study in folk culture", in: Y Cymmrodor; XLVII, London, 1940
7. ^ The Mabinogion, The Dream of Rhonabwy, Penguin Classics edition 1982
8. ^ http://www.virtuallydartmoor.org.uk/visit-uppacott1.html
9. ^ "Interactive Visit to Higher Uppacott". Virtually Dartmoor. http://www.virtuallydartmoor.org.uk/visit-uppacott1.html. Retrieved 2008-04-01. 

External links

• The Dartmoor Longhouse Dartmoor National Park