Diptford Court

Diptford Court is a house, formerly a farmhouse, with origins probably in the 16th century. It has been extended and remodelled several times: in the early to mid 17th century, possibly again in the late 17th or 18th century, substantially in the early 19th century, and again in the late 20th century.

The building consists of a long main range with a rear wing at the left-hand end. The main range is two storeys and contains five rooms. The whitewashed rendered stone rubble exterior has a dry slate roof with gabled ends and a wooden modillion eaves cornice at the front. The rear wing and right-hand east end have painted stone rubble walls. Late 20th-century additions include slate hanging at the back. Rendered stacks with recessed tops and weathering stand at the right and left gable ends of the main range, at the gable end of the rear wing, and as a rear lateral stack now within the 20th-century addition. The right-hand end of the front range and rear wing have asbestos slate roofs.

The structural sequence suggests the rear wing is the earliest part, with one surviving late 16th or early 17th-century roof truss. The central section of the main range—now the entrance hall and dining room—appears to be original and is defined by full-height partition walls, with four early or mid 17th-century roof trusses. A drawing room to the right was probably added later in the 17th or 18th century; it has a rear lateral stack and is contemporary with, or earlier than, a stair tower at the back of the entrance hall containing an early 19th-century staircase. A small service room at the lower left-hand end was probably added during the early 19th-century remodelling. In the inner angle between the two ranges sits a turret with a probably 17th-century winder stair. A smaller newel stair rises from the first floor of the rear wing into its roof, suggesting the wing was originally taller.

The south front is asymmetrical with widely spaced windows. The first floor has six windows—three square 12-pane sashes to the left and a tripartite sash (4:46:4) right of centre, with a larger tripartite sash to the right. These are not aligned over the four ground-floor windows. The ground floor contains a 16-pane sash to the left and tripartite sashes (8:12:8) flanking the off-centre doorway. Most front windows are early 19th-century sashes with glazing bars, except the ground-floor left, which is a 20th-century replacement, and the right-hand windows in the late 20th-century addition, where the ground floor is a French door. The doorway has early 19th-century flush-panel double doors, the top panel glazed, and a shallow porch with slender wooden columns supporting a canopy with a panelled soffit.

The rear wing has a 19th-century three-light casement with glazing bars on the first floor, carried down over the projecting stair turret, which has been partly engulfed by the later stair tower stepped back to the left and featuring a 19th-century fixed-light nine-pane window. The rear lateral stack projects above the flat roof of the late 20th-century two-storey slate-hung addition. The outer side of the rear wing has 19th-century casements and a 20th-century glazed door. The converted outbuilding at the end of the rear wing has external stone stairs up to a blocked left doorway and late 20th-century glazed door and casements. Fire insurance plaques in lead are mounted on the east gable end and above the front doorway.

Interior details include a ground-floor room to the left of the entrance hall with a glazed china cupboard set into the front wall, moulded and panelled doors, and panelled window shutters. The room to the right of the entrance has moulded and panelled doors, similarly panelled shutters, and a rococo marble chimney piece from another house. The right-hand end room, in the 20th-century addition, reuses an Adam-style white marble chimney piece with bands of yellow marble in the frieze. The entrance hall has a slate floor with diamond-shaped Devon marble insets and a stairwell containing an early 19th-century framed closed-string staircase with stick balusters, moulded handrail, and square newels. Hall doors are moulded and panelled.

The kitchen features chamfered cross-beams. On the first floor of the rear wing, a stone newel stair with wooden treads rises from the first floor; the doorway at the bottom has a wooden frame with true mitres and chamfered interior. Several early 19th-century panelled doors appear on the first floor.

Roof structure over the rear wing includes one early truss with straight principals, morticed apex, mortices for threaded purlins, and a missing morticed collar; other trusses have been replaced in the 18th or 19th century. The main range roof contains four trusses between two full-height walls with straight principals bearing two tiers of mortices for threaded purlins and crashed collars with notched lap joints. The apexes have trenching for a diagonal ridgepiece; the ridgepiece itself, most purlins, and all rafters are missing. The west end of the main range roof has one truss lapped and pegged at the apex; the east end has nailed or bolted soft-wood principals.

Diptford Court is said to have been the court-house of the manor.