A DISTINCTIVE medieval longhouse on Dartmoor has been classed as a Grade I listed building of national importance — a significant milestone for the national park authority.

Higher Uppacott was built in the 14th century as a farmhouse in which both people and cattle were accommodated under a single roof.

It is one of the few remaining examples of this type of building and is one where you can see the development from its medieval beginnings through to the present day.

Owned by the Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA), Higher Uppacott is currently undergoing substantial specialist conservation works, funded by the Moor than meets the eye Heritage Lottery project, to improve access, understanding and condition of the building and its former historic farmstead site.

Work has included new combed wheat thatch, slate roof coverings and external works to provide an authentic historic farmstead setting for the medieval longhouse. As well as works to restore the internal historic fabric and features in the shippon — cattle shelter — in the longhouse.

The work carried out so far has revealed some fascinating information about the people who lived at the house and about the development of the building.

A ‘working’ long-house like Higher Uppacott is rare to find, especially one so distinctive and still standing. As soon as you approach the house it is quickly clear you are about to see something with immense historical value. You see this kind of structure in certain areas on Dartmoor — if you know where to look — but these are ruins and ones where you really have to use your imagination. These remains, dating 1250 to 1400 AD, can be seen at nearby Hound Tor or Hutholes in Widecombe-in-the-Moor.

As a home for humble tenants, its design is distinctive and found, at one time, all over the country.

Animals were housed in the lower end of the building (shippon), which is separated from the upper (human) end by a cross passage. In its basic form, both human and animal shared the same entrance. The full length of the building is aligned down the hill slope for drainage reasons — a practical arrangement that facilitated drainage, with a cobbled floor having a central stone-flagged drain leading to a hole at the base of the wall.

This shippon is one of a few which remains essentially unaltered since medieval times. As a result of this, and the survival of other interesting features in the house, Dartmoor National Park Authority purchased the longhouse in 1979.

The earliest surviving dateable feature in the building is the oak roof truss in the shippon. It is thought that this truss, based on stylistic grounds, belongs to mid to second half of the 14th century and provides the latest possible date for the for the construction of the longhouse.

The cobbled cross passage which divided the humans from the animals would have originally been divided by a low wooden partition screen — replaced in the late 15th century by a full height stone granite wall.

The domestic end of the longhouse features two rooms — hall and inner room. The roof timbers over these rooms have been blackened by smoke from the open fire as too has the thatch. Smoke-blackened thatch is very rare nationally.

As time progressed, the building developed into a ‘house’ as we would know it, with the creation of private spaces and rooms, including a bedroom on the first floor of the inner room in the mid 16th century.

One show of status, was the insertion of a new fireplace in the hall, which backs onto the cross passage.

In the 17th century, the hall was floored over, creating a further bedroom, the west wall had two new windows inserted — one which was a re-used 15th or 16th century architect-ural fragment, showing a further sign of wealth and status.

At about the same time as the hall was floored over, a small parlour wing, compris-ing one room on each floor, was added to the east of the house, with internal access at both floor levels of the longhouse. Each room had a fireplace built at the same time.

Then, in the 18th and 19th century, lean-to outshots were added to the longhouse on the courtyard, and farm buildings were built.

Mike Nendick, communications officer for the national park authority, said that the long list of interesting facts of the building show how vitally important it is to the history of Dartmoor.

‘It’s a very important building — it is in the top couple of per cent of historic buildings in the country. It is from the same era as Hutholes at Hound Tor, from the 1300s. There are two medieval settlements that people can see at anytime but they are retired and deserted.

‘Higher Uppacott is important as it has been lived in and cared for, continually, from the 14th century to the 20th century.’

As part of the conservation project for the Moor than meets the eye scheme, the authority wanted to unveil certain areas of the building that had been hidden by the change in times. These included removing a concrete floor from the crosspath in the longhouse which uncovered the original cobble path. The cobble path has now been lovingly restored by Leo Brooke, an apprentice with the DNPA, and Andy Cribbett, stonemason at the authority, using locally sourced stones and a mix of sand, soil and decompose granite called growan.

DNPA archaeologist Lee Bray said the building was built in time of uncertainty in the country and at the same time as the Black Death — 1348 to 1349 — and you can see the human aspect in this building everywhere you look.

‘The longhouse is rectangular in shape and would have been separated into two zones by a wooden screen. Over the centuries it hasn’t been altered very much which makes it a very special and important building.

‘People who lived here even in the medieval period would have been prosperous peasants and we can see a record of their pasts and how they lived by the details in the building.’

One of the most exciting discoveries for everyone involved in the project has been burn marks that were found on the timber of the bedrooms above the upper hall and the inner room.

‘These type of burn marks (pictured) have been found around Northern Europe, France, Romania, Wales and Norfolk, some people have said that they are accidental — but to make these marks deliberately you have to hold a candle in place at a 45-degree angle for 30 minutes for it to make the same type of mark that we see on the timber. They can’t be made accidental.

‘They believe these marks were made around the 16th century and is a form of folk magic but we don’t have any written evidence as to why they did this — maybe it was done to protect the building from fire, maybe it was from praying. Whatever it was, it brings a human aspect to the building and it’s very exciting.’

• Higher Uppacott is not currently open to the public except through a guided visits programme by the national park authority. A formal programme of visits will be issued this year.