Donnington Farm and Japonica

Donnington Farm and Japonica is a mid-to-late seventeenth-century farmhouse, extended to the south in the early nineteenth century, possibly incorporating earlier eighteenth-century structures. Twentieth and twenty-first-century alterations have been made throughout.

The building is constructed of brick in various bonds, including Flemish bond and English garden wall bond, with a plain clay-tile roof and brick stacks. Twentieth-century timber-framed windows are set beneath segmental brick heads. The west and south elevations are rendered.

The plan comprises a single-pile north range of two storeys with an attic and cellar, with the staircase positioned at the east end. The two-storey south range has a double-pile plan with a central hall and staircase with rooms to either side and an opened-up range to the rear. The first floor is arranged over two levels, and the whole south range is spanned by a wide Queen-post roof.

The principal entrance elevation faces east on the two-storey south range and comprises three bays with a gabled late-twentieth-century porch to the central bay. The six-panel entrance door may have been re-used from elsewhere. The ground-floor window to the left-hand bay replaces a former doorway. There is a ridge stack to the south bay and a cross axial stack between the south and north ranges. The gabled east elevation of the north range has an inserted stair window and two windows to the attic, all with flat heads; evidence for numerous former openings is visible. The cellar grille has a segmental brick head with a row of vitrified headers above.

The north elevation is arranged as three bays, with the central gabled bay set forward. The S-ends to the iron tie bars are visible to this bay. Twentieth-century windows to the ground and first floors of each bay replace seventeenth-century cross windows. An additional inserted window is present to the gable, and the central ground-floor window may originally have formed a doorway. The stepped brick plinth incorporates three former cellar grilles (now blocked) with double rows of headers forming the segmental heads. To the outer bays are brick plat bands between the ground and first floors, and a continuous brick string course runs above the first-floor windows.

The gabled west elevation of the north range has twentieth-century inserted windows. The cellar doorway has a segmental brick head and has been reduced in width and height. To the right is a doorway in the south range which now provides access to the north range. The west elevation of the south range has a varied arrangement of window and door openings. The south gable end has twentieth-century inserted windows and doors.

The interior of the north range contains a mid-to-late-seventeenth-century oak dog-leg staircase with winder, turned balusters, closed string, moulded handrail and newel posts. The stair between the first floor and attic is late-twentieth-century apart from the newel post to the half landing. Beneath the stair is a seventeenth-century plank door with T-shaped hinges with pronounced taper and rounded ends. The seventeenth-century pegged roof trusses comprise principals with curved feet, collars and tenoned purlins.

The central entrance hall to the south range has a quarry tile floor and an early-nineteenth-century open-string staircase with ramped handrail, slender newel posts and stick balusters. Beneath the stair is a brick floor which may continue to the south bay. The ground floor rooms to the south end have chamfered axial ceiling beams with stepped stops, and the room above has a Regency-style cast iron fireplace. The fireplace to the north room is typical of the mid-nineteenth-century style but is re-used or reproduction. Throughout are early-nineteenth-century six-panel doors, one within an early-nineteenth-century doorcase. The south range is spanned by a Queen-post roof of re-used timbers, with twentieth-century common rafters above.