Ford Farmhouse

DUNSFORD SX 89 SW

3/7 Ford Farmhouse

• II

Farmhouse. Circa 1680 with late C20 windows and some internal re-arrangement of the late C20. Colourwashed rendered cob with slate roofs gabled at ends, end stacks with brick shafts, projecting stone rubble stack with oven to rear left wing. Single build U-plan house, 3-rooms wide with principal rooms on either side of a central entrance hall with a stair and adjacent through passage to the rear. Rear left and right wings contain service rooms, the rear left wing was formerly a kitchen and is heated by a lateral stack on the inner return wall. In the late C20 the principal ground floor room has been enlarged by moving the partition wall towards the centre of the house. 2 storeys. Symmetrical 7-bay front with coved eaves, the central bay slightly advanced. C20 open porch with gabled roof carried on columns. Fenestration of late C20 plastic top-hung casements in original embrasures, the windows replaced are said to have been casements with high transoms. Interior The house retains high quality features of circa 1680 including decorated plasterwork (Period Three, French). The principal ground floor room has a bolection- moulded chimney piece with an integral landscape painting on boards in the overmantel. A central cross beam is cased in moulded plaster; on either side of the beam plaster ovals enriched with thistles and oak leaves. A fine dog leg stair has a flat handrail and thick barley sugar balusters which continue to the third flight which leads into the attic. The principal first floor room has a bolection-moulded chimney piece with an integral painting on boards in the overmantel: the painting depicts a hunting scene and is rustic in execution. C19 grate. The ceiling is decorated with plaster floral motifs. Ground floor room left has a massive fireplace with stone jambs and a plain timber lintel, 1 original door survives between this room and the former kitchen to the rear: the door has panels formed by moulded battens and a chamfered pegged door frame with ogee stops. The former kitchen has a massive open fireplace. The attic was presumably used as a garret room and has oak floor boards, the apex of the roof inacessible at time of survey (1985) but the roof trusses appear to be coeval with the house. The internal features of Ford Farmhouse are particularly fine examples of high class plasterwork and joinery of the circa late C17. The ground floor overmantel painting is illustrated incountr Life and described as probably of Dutch origin. Kathleen and Cecil French, "Devonshire Plasterwork", T.D.A., 1957, vol. 89, pp. 124- 144. Contry Life , Feb. 23, 1956.

Listing NGR: SX8319490806