Dockwell Farmhouse Including Shippon Adjoining North East

Dockwell Farmhouse, including the adjoining shippon, dates from the late 15th century or early 16th century and was remodelled in the early 17th century. It is constructed of whitewashed rendered stone rubble and features a bitumenised scantle slate roof with gabled and hipped ends. The layout consists of three rooms and a through or cross passage plan, with an axial hall stack backing onto the passage. Originally, there were stairs at either end of the hall at the rear, and a solid wall separates the inner room from the hall. A gabled bay from the 17th century has been added to the front to enlarge the hall. The lower end, likely originally a shippon, has been reduced and rebuilt as a kitchen, while an early 19th-century shippon has been added to the higher end. The top stone treads of newel stairs at both ends of the hall are visible on the rear wall, indicating that it was originally an open hall with storeyed ends, with the stack and hall flooring being a later alteration. Part of the rear wall of the kitchen has been rebuilt, and a straight joint suggests there was originally a rear doorway to the through passage, which is now blocked. The farmhouse is two storeys high and has four windows, featuring small 20th-century casements with glazing bars. To the right of the centre, there is a gabled two-storey projection to the hall with unmoulded dripstones over the windows. A doorway to the left of centre leads to the through passage, which has an open-fronted stone porch with a lean-to spurried slate roof. The adjoining early 19th-century shippon is built of stone rubble with a hipped corrugated iron roof. Inside, the axial hall fireplace has granite block jambs and a new granite lintel with an oven, and the hall ceiling is plastered. The screen to the kitchen from the through or cross passage has been removed, and the kitchen fireplace is blocked. Dockwell Farmhouse is an interesting example of an evolved house that may have originally been a longhouse, similar in plan to Gisperdown Farmhouse in South Brent.