Great Deptford Farmhouse With Dairy And Older House Attached At West End

Great Deptford Farmhouse with Dairy and Cider House

This farmhouse complex began in the late medieval period and was remodelled in the late 16th and early to mid 17th centuries. It was reroofed and significantly altered in the late 19th century, with further changes made in the 20th century. The main farmhouse is built of painted rendered stone rubble and cob with some brick dressings, and has a slate roof with gable ends. Two tall front lateral stacks with tapered caps heightened in brick serve the hall and lower end, the latter featuring offsets. There is also a brick shaft to a stone rubble stack at the right gable end.

The building originally functioned as an open hall house, as evidenced by smoke-blackening on the hall side of the solid wall partition between the hall and inner room. The large cross ceiling beam chamfered on the upper side towards the lower end of the hall suggests a possible jettied arrangement, with the lower end ceiled first in the late 16th century, followed by the hall proper. The massive solid cob and stone partition rising to the roof apex between hall and inner room, together with 17th-century scratch-moulded joists to the inner room, suggests the latter may be an addition to an original 2-room and cross-passage plan. The inner room contains an axial partition towards the rear creating a small rear passage with a winder staircase towards the right gable end. In the 19th century, a staircase was inserted filling the passage, and the lower end was considerably altered. The cider house was added at the same time and the dairy largely rebuilt.

The two-storey farmhouse presents a 4-window range, principally of early 20th-century fenestration. From left to right these comprise a 2-light casement with 3 panes per light, twin 2-light casements with 4 panes per light, and two 3-light casements with 3 panes per light. The ground floor features a large lean-to porch at the left end with a 19th-century inner plank door. To its left is a 3-light casement of 6 panes per light. A shallow late 19th-century brick porch with patterned slate lean-to roof contains a 6-panelled door, the upper 3 panels glazed, serving the cross-passage doorway. A 20th-century 2-light window and 20th-century flat-roofed conservatory extension occupy the right end. The cider house at the left end has a 3-window range with brick surrounds to two left-hand ground floor windows, a plank door to the right, and external steps to a loft door at the left gable end.

The interior of the lower end was remodelled in the 19th century, though earlier fabric is likely concealed. An axial chamfered ceiling beam with pyramid stops serves the dairy, which retains slate slabs. The hall features a fireplace rebuilt in the 20th century but retaining its original chamfered timber lintel. Two cross ceiling beams span the hall, that towards the lower end chamfered on the upper side only with keel stops, except at the front end of the lower beam which has a pyramid-type stop. A bressumer at the upper end of the hall is also keel-stopped but unfinished at the front end. A raised and fielded 2-panelled door with original joinery connects the hall to a passage leading to the rear of the inner room. A chamfered cross ceiling beam spans the inner room, with original joists. Those to the hall side are scratch-moulded, while those towards the gable end are partly scratch-moulded and partly unfinished.