Lettaford is an ancient settlement on the fringes of Dartmoor. Sited in a hollow for shelter, its buildings are grouped around a green, some still in active farming use. The public road that takes you there peters out into tracks up onto the moor. Since before 1300, farmers have grazed their cattle on the rough upland pasture and cultivated crops in the tiny fields lower down. The land yielded a surprisingly good living over the centuries, and their way of life and careful economy was expressed in the longhouses they built to live in at one end, and shelter their cattle at the other. After 1500, such well-built dwellings sprang up in greater numbers in this part of Devon than anywhere else.

One of our buildings is just such a longhouse; another started as such but now presents itself as a handsome Victorian farmhouse. Our third Landmark at Lettaford is the diminutive former Nonconformist chapel. The self-contained and resourceful life of an upland people goes on around you as it always has, while the rising moors around are there to be explored or simply admired, depending on your tastes.

Sanders is a near perfect Dartmoor long-house of about 1500, arranged on the usual plan of inner room, hall, cross-passage and shippon, all under one roof, with a shouldered porch originally the entrance for both cows and people. The walls are made of blocks of granite ashlar, some of them enormous. This was a house of high quality, but it declined into a labourer’s cottage long enough ago to avoid damaging improvements.

Sleeps: 5