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.

Higher Lettaford had been empty for some years when we bought it in 1987. It was once a longhouse, but in about 1840 its lower end was rebuilt, most comfortably, by two Misses Pynsent, who may have run a small Nonconformist school here.

Their house has large windows, and a verandah, introducing a whiff of Torquay and a life of seaside ease to this hard-working place. The bedrooms are some of the prettiest in any Landmark, and from the front door, the old track leads up to the moor.

Sleeps: 7