This simple floorplan is clearly visible at the abandoned mediaeval village at Hound Tor, which was inhabited from the mid-13th to the mid-15th centuries corresponding with the establishment of the Ancient Tenements on the high moorlands and abandoned as a result of depopulation following the Black Death after 1340. Excavations during the 1960s revealed four longhouses, many featuring a central drainage channel, and several smaller houses and barns. Peter Herring notes in his discussion of a medieval hamlet of six longhouses at Brown Willy in Cornwall dating from the mid-thirteenth century, that the shippons were typically orientated toward a common livestock holding area or 'townplace', whilst the raised human portion was carefully positioned away from the communal area for privacy. Roofs were originally thatched, with gardens and various agricultural outbuildings including communal corn-driers.