Row of 4 cottages, Chapel Street, Buckfastleigh, Devon
This row of 4 cottages has a tenter loft, for drying cloth, on the upper storey. The cottages date from the late 17th or early 18th century. They are built from painted local grey limestone rubble, the loft is weatherboarded. The tenter loft, a very unusual survival in Devon, was used for drying cloth slowly, stretched on tenterhooks. It had louvres that could be adjusted according to the weather. In the 1980s several tenterhooks, like small cup hooks, survived. The building is from the time when industry was moving from the cottage system to a pre-factory or outwork system.
