Challacombe deserted medieval settlement

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1021395) describes a deserted medieval settlement immediately north of today's Challacombe farmhouse. The scheduling falls into two areas. It has at least seven separate buildings set beside a north-south track, all surviving at least in part as standing granite walling, many with the walls collapsed to earthworks. The settlement stayed in use into the post-medieval period, and some of the earlier longhouses were altered then. The best preserved building stands in the south, with its walls largely intact, windows in the north and east walls, three rooms and corners of large granite blocks. It lies in the parish of Manaton, about 1.4 km south-west of Hameldown Tor.

The earliest document for the site is of 1481, when it is called Chalvecombe, and by 1613 there were five separate tenements, which continued until at least 1880. Round the settlement lie other nationally important remains, including some of the best preserved medieval strip fields in Devon, an earlier prehistoric settlement and later tinworking, in two separate schedulings (SM36022 and SM36023). Modern fences are excluded, though the ground beneath them is included.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1021395, which cites Griffiths's unpublished plan, Challacombe, Manaton: deserted medieval buildings. Guy Wareham has added photographs of a longhouse end in a comment on the Historic England page; I have not used them.

• Period: Medieval
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1021395)
• Grid reference: SX 6936 7958 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)