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Summary

Dolly's Cott. A deserted building in ruinous condition with associated pounds. A small cottage 4.3 metres by 6.1 metres. Well built of mortared stone, with one outbuilding possibly more. Some enclosures. Large fireplace with granite lintel on ground floor, smaller example above. Short western end intact, the rest has collapsed.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX67SE79
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 443088
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX67SE/122

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• HOUSE (Built, XVII to XIX - 1700 AD (Between) to 1899 AD (Between))
• OUTBUILDING (Built, XVII to XIX - 1700 AD (Between) to 1899 AD (Between))

Full description

Untitled Source (Migrated Record). SDV276525.

West Country Studies Library =os 2" surveyors drawing/(1802).

Ordnance Survey, 1880-1899, First Edition Ordnance 25 inch map (Cartographic). SDV336179.

Baring Gould, S., 1900, A Book of Dartmoor, 196-7 (Monograph). SDV277387.

Crossing, W., 1912 (1965), Crossing's Guide to Dartmoor, 458 (Monograph). SDV320981.

Royal Air Force, 1961, 58/4424, F43.183 (Aerial Photograph). SDV280247.

Linehan, C. D., 1966, Deserted Sites and Rabbit-Warrens on Dartmoor, Devon, 124-5 (Article in Serial). SDV307246.

Dolly's Cott, Brimpts. A deserted building in ruinous condition with associated pounds.850ft od, building shows late development.

Haynes, R. G., 1966-1969, Ruined Sites on Dartmoor, 34 (Un-published). SDV150434.

(13/06/1967) A small cottage 4.3m x 6.1m. Well built of mortared stone, with one outbuilding possibly more. Some enclosures. Large fireplace with granite lintel on ground floor, smaller example above. Short western end intact, the rest has collapsed.

Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division, 1979, OS 72/066, 45-6 (Aerial Photograph). SDV262465.

Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division, 1980, SX67SE79 (Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Card). SDV276519.

(05/03/1980) At SX 67227439 near the west bank of the East Dart is the remains of 'Dolly Cot', (name confirmed), a two storey building of roughly dressed and mortared stone with walling measuring 0.6m. wide and averaging 1.5m. high. It measures 7.4m. by 4.5m. internally, has a chimney at its west end, and a yard attached to its east end. It has the appearance of being post-Medieval. (See GP).
Surveyed at 1:2500 on MSD.

Hemery, E., 1983, High Dartmoor (Monograph). SDV249702.

Hemery/high dartmoor land and people/().

Royal Commission for the Historical Monuments of England, 1987-1993, Duchy Farms Project Survey Visit (Report - Survey). SDV350839.

(28/09/1988) A ruinous, stone-built, two-storey cottage and associated outbuilding, situated at SX 6723 7439 at the foot of a steep slope close to the west bank of the East Dart River. It is known as "Dolly's Cott".
The cottage survives as a rectangular, single cell, measuring 6.4 x 4.1m internally with an almost complete SW gable and more fragmentary remains of the other three walls. These are of mortared, rough-dressed, random coursed stone, about 0.65m thick and between 1 and 2.8m high. The gable reaches 6m with the eaves at 3.4m. The NE end is much reduced and obscured by tumble. An entrance is placed centrally in the SE wall but this too is now partially hidden.
A large fireplace with shelving grooves to each side, projects into the room on the SW wall; it is 1.4m wide, 1.25m high and 0.7m deep, with a dressed-granite lintel. A smaller fireplace at first-floor level is offset towards the S corner. Putlog holes in the SW and NW walls indicate the first-floor level. The interior contains a rough, subcircular stone wall arrangement which clearly post-dates the occupation of the cottage itself; according to Hemery it represents rough seating and table (Hemery, 1983).
Keyed into the NE side of the cottage is a second structure. It is rectangular, measuring 14.2 x 2.7m internally, with unmarked walling 0.7m thick. Like the cottage, the level interior is formed by cutting sharply into the natural slope, consequently the NW wall is a revetment 1.5m high and the SE wall a revetment 0.8m high. At the NE end a rough dividing wall forms a cell 2.7 x 2.5m. This structure is probably the linhay mentioned in 1840 (Tithe Map) and not a yard (OS, 1980).
A possible third structure at SX 6721 7440 consists of a platform 5.1m N-S x 2.6m E-W cut to a depth of 1.1m into the steep hill-slope.
A wall 1m wide x 0.4m high defines the S side and appears to run under the adjacent field wall. It is composed of double thickness boulders only one course high.
Traditionally Dolly's Cott was the late C18th home of Tom Trebble and his wife, Dolly (Hemery, 1983, Crossing's Guide, 1912). It is depicted in 1802 (1802 Surveyors Drawing, WCSL) and its plot recorded in 1840 (Tithe Map) as "Northern Cottage, linhay and plots", all part of Brimpts Farm, but abandoned before 1884 (OS). There is no reason to doubt an C18th origin.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV8634 - Brimpts Farm, Duchy Farms Survey
• EDV8423 - Duchy Farms Project

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