Croft Dene

Croft Dene

A house of late medieval origin, extended and remodelled in the 17th century and later. The building was converted into two dwellings and subsequently reunited into one. It is constructed of rendered stone rubble with a steeply pitched dry slate roof. The left end has a half-hipped roof, while the right end is gabled with a rendered stair turret having a tapered cap and dry stone construction. Two large rendered rear lateral stacks are enclosed within rear outshuts which have catslide roofs.

The plan comprises three rooms. The two rooms to the left form the original house, which was extremely or partly open to the roof in its earliest phase. Around the mid to late 17th century, floors were inserted and the plan was reorganised with a cross passage between the two rooms and a newel staircase at the back of the passage. The left-hand room is the smaller of the two, and each room has a rear lateral stack. Also dating from around the mid to late 17th century, a single-room addition was built at the right end with a wide passage or narrow unheated room between it and the original section, and a gable-end stack. A rounded recess in the rear wall of this passage or narrow room probably contained a newel stair. The partition between the passage and the right-hand room may be more recent, suggesting the spaces originally formed one large room. Two phases of outshuts have been added to the rear, with the deeper outshut behind the left end.

The exterior is two storeys with an asymmetrical five-window range arranged as three windows to the left and two to the right. The left-hand section features 19th-century three-light casements with glazing bars and a central doorway with a circa 17th-century chamfered wooden doorframe, now fitted with a 20th-century door. A large rendered stone porch with a lean-to roof, probably dating to the 17th or 18th century, stands in front. The right-hand two-window addition has small 19th to 20th-century two-light casements with glazing bars on the first floor and 20th-century casements on the ground floor, alongside a large 20th-century glazed porch. A lean-to structure with a garage door is positioned at the right end. The rear elevation displays two large rendered lateral stacks, with the right-hand stack paired with a shorter, deeper outshut with a catslide roof, and the left side showing a longer, shallower outshut positioned below the eaves level of the main range.

The interior of the left room of the original house contains a thin unstopped chamfered cross-beam with a blocked rear fireplace. The central or right room of the original house has closely spaced chamfered waney cross-beams also without stops and a rear fireplace with stone rubble jambs and a later unchamfered timber lintel. The partitions between the passage and the left and central rooms are plastered stud or plank construction, and a wide stone newel staircase rises from the back of the passage. The passage or narrow room between the central and right-hand rooms has large rough joists and a rounded recess in its rear wall, possibly for a newel staircase, though this is now occupied by 20th-century stairs. The right-hand end room has 20th-century ceiling joists and a blocked fireplace in the gable-end wall, replaced with a smaller 20th-century fireplace. On the first floor above the centre room is a rear fireplace with a chamfered lintel.

The roof structure is notable for the survival of a smoke-blackened raised hip cruck of medieval date. This cruck is embedded in a stone rubble partition wall at the right end of the centre room, which is heightened with cob above the stone wall below. The cruck was preserved when a new roof was built over the whole building, probably in the mid to late 17th century. This later roof features lapped and pegged collars with morticed apexes. The roof over the right end follows the same construction, though the apexes have been pulled apart with high collars inserted and lapped and pegged to the principals.