Cokesputt Farmhouse

PAYHEMBURY ST 00 SE 3/80 Cokesputt Farmhouse 9.2.88 - II

Farmhouse. C16 or C17 origins, refurbished and partly rebuilt in the mid C19. Plastered walls, the front wall at least is C19 brick but other parts are cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble or brick stacks topped with C19 brick; roof of scallop-shaped red tiles, originally thatch. Plan and development: 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south. The left (west) end, the lower end in traditional terms, is a large parlour (called the ballroom) which has a gable-end stack. Next to it is the passage which has been widened to accommodate the main stair. Right of centre is the dining room in the position of the hall; it has a rear lateral stack and at the right (east) end is the kitchen with a projecting gable-end stack. A dairy block projects at right angles to rear of the dining room and overlaps the kitchen a little. Despite the layout which suggests that the house originated as some form of hall house there is hardly any evidence to prove this. The mid C19 refurbishment was apparently very extensive. House is 2 storeys. Exterior: symmetrical 5-window front of original mid C19 casements with glazing bars (including a couple of C20 replacement careful copies). Those on the ground floor are larger and have larger panes of glass. Passage front doorway is central and contains a C19 part-glazed 6-panel door. The verandah is probably original. The roof is gable-ended. The kitchen chimneyshaft has a date plaque on its front side but it is illegible. The rear stair window contains C19 patterned coloured glass. Interior: nearly all the joinery and other detail is mid C19. The main stair is open string with stick balusters and the chimneypieces are all C19. The kitchen has a roughly-chamfered crossbeam of indeterminate date. However the dining room has a 4-panel ceiling of intersecting beams, deeply chamfered with projecting bead mouldings. It is late C16 - early C17. No trusses show at first floor level and since the roof pitch is relatively low the structure is thought to be C19. Cokesputt is a very well preserved Victorian farmhouse. It has had little C20 modernisation. Although some earlier fabric may be hidden by C19 plaster the house must be considered first and foremost C19.

Listing NGR: ST0845301635