Castle End Monks Court

Castle End and Monks Court is a large farmhouse, now comprising two dwellings, situated on Castle Street in Deddington. The building dates from the early 16th century and 1647 (marked by a datestone), with significant alterations and extensions carried out in the late 18th century.

The structure is built of marlstone rubble with ashlar dressings and wooden lintels, featuring coursed squared marlstone with limestone-ashlar dressings. The roofs are covered in Stonesfield slate with ashlar stacks. The building follows a 4-unit plan arranged in two main builds, with an added outshut and rear wings, rising to 2 storeys with the left section containing an attic storey.

The right half of the front elevation, constructed of rubble and dating to at least the 16th century or earlier, now displays three 16-pane late 18th-century sash windows at each floor, all fitted with wooden lintels. To the left stands a fine 4-centred arched 16th-century moulded stone doorway with label, sheltered beneath a 2-storey porch. Above the porch entrance is a 2-light ovolo-moulded stone-mullioned window, with a moulded stone doorway below bearing a moulded label and lozenge stops. The porch gable contains a panel inscribed 1647. The adjoining 3-window range to the left, probably contemporary with the datestone, features similar mullioned windows of 2, 3 and 5 lights aligned beneath two stone gables, together with an additional 2-light window without label set between the first-floor windows. The ground-floor windows are unusually large but are likely 17th-century in date. The left end wall contains further mullioned windows. The steeply pitched roof carries stacks to both gables and to the right of centre. The right gable has been rebuilt and connects to a late 17th or 18th-century rear wing with later windows. A late 18th-century outshut extends to the rear of the main range, now partly raised, with a higher section featuring a tall arched stair window with Gothick glazing bars. At the left end, the outshut extends further rearward to connect with a small 18th-century range, originally probably a stable and loft, now forming part of Monks Court.

Internally, the right half of Castle End contains stop-chamfered cross beams and a 2-bay roof. The central truss has a collar and cambered chamfered tiebeam supporting 2 rows of butt purlins; this roof may date to the early 18th century or earlier. The left half preserves an early 16th-century roof with trenched purlins and a ridge beam supported on a fine arch-braced collar truss worked with hollow chamfers. A large Tudor-arched stone fireplace with recessed spandrels and an arched single-light window (now internal) survive at first-floor level and are likely contemporary with the roof. Monks Court retains a mid-17th-century open fireplace with bressumer chamfer returning down the jambs, although it was substantially remodelled in the late 18th century. Late 18th-century joinery includes a stair with stick balusters and an inlaid ramped and wreathed mahogany handrail; the stair hall features a 4-centred plaster vault. An early 16th-century roof truss documented by Wood Jones has been destroyed by the construction of a party wall. There is no surviving evidence of an open hall, though it likely originally occupied the site now encompassed by Monks Court.