Dukes

Dukes is a substantial detached house with a 17th-century core, significantly altered and updated in the early 19th century. The construction is a mix of cob and stone with brick infilling, plastered and covered by gabled-end slate roofs. Originally designed with a 3-room, cross-passage plan, the house includes a front parlour wing on the left and a lengthening of the main range to the right in the early 19th century.

The house is two storeys high, with an attic half-storey to the wing. The main elevation, which faces away from the streets, has a four-window range. The first floor features three 3-light windows with hornless sashes (four panes per sash) and a 2-light casement window above the porch, also with hornless sashes (six panes per light), all set under hood moulds. A gabled porch, set left of centre and marking the former passage, has weatherboarding, a pendant in the apex, and a segmentally-headed moulded arch. The ground floor has one window to the left of the porch and two to the right; these windows are in canted bays with a 1:2:1 configuration and 10 panes per main light. The upper lights feature quatrefoil motifs, all under cornices decorated with shields and quatrefoils. A gutter box extends from this section to the wing and includes decorative terracotta heads. The parlour wing’s inner face features 3-light windows with narrower lights than the main front, while attic windows are set under segmentally-headed arches at eaves level. First-floor windows have hornless sashes with six panes per sash, and the ground floor windows flank the front door. Like the main front, the parlour wing’s windows are under hood moulds. A glazed veranda with iron posts is present. The end of the wing has no windows and is slate-roofed. Single-storeyed outbuildings extending along Hele Road align with the wing.

At the rear (facing Hele Road), a stack has been partially dismantled – formerly heating the parlour. Four 2-light windows with hornless sashes (two panes per sash) are present on the first floor, with two on the ground floor. The rear (facing High Street) is obscured by a perimeter wall and has one 4-light window with ovolo moulding. A 20th-century flat-roofed extension is also present.

The roof retains sawn-off bases of 17th-century trusses in the wing and exhibits an unusual 19th-century truss profile – a variant of hammer beam construction with dovetailed and halved struts and upper collars. The main range has a conventional 19th-century 6-bay roof.

Good early 19th-century gates, consisting of one double and one single gate, feature two tiers of depressed panelling and an upper tier of arcading.