Site Event/Activity record EEM14089 - 2013: HBR - Farm building, Lower East Lyn

A record of a ruined building at Lower East Lyn Farm, Lynton & Lynmouth, Devon (SS 73453 48182) was prepared by AC archaeology in January 2013. The structure contains few obviously dateable features, but the presence of putlogs, which become rare after c. 1700, is indicative of a medieval or early post-medieval date. The plan and the function of the building are very difficult to determine, and whilst it is possible that the structure was erected as a high status outbuilding such as a stable, neither its low roof nor its unglazed windows preclude a domestic function. The building is of sufficient quality to suggest that it may have begun life as a dwelling, possibly as a longhouse, combining residential accommodation at the uphill end of the house with a shippon or cowshed in the lower end, draining downhill. Major alterations to the building seem to have first occurred in the 18th or early 19th Century, when it may have become a shippon. At some point, probably in the 19th Century, further alterations were made, possibly during a general overhaul of the agricultural buildings at Lower East Lyn. In the late 19th or early 20th century, the south facing windows were narrowed or blocked and new flooring was inserted in the eastern rooms. At this point the building was certainly functioning as a cattle shed, a function it seems to have retained almost to the end.