Listed Building record MDO17942 - Whiteway Farmhouse, Church Knowle

Whiteway Farm. The late C16th-early C17th farmhouse is part of a group of farm buildings none of which are later than C18th. The Dairy House is early C17th, granary C17th, Valley, Barn and Cartshed Cottages and the main barn are all C18th. All are listed Grade II and recorded by RCHM as a group most worthy of preservation. <3>

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 scale map, 1963 (Map). SDO17396.

(SY924812) Whiteway Farm [NAT]

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 1, 46-7 (Monograph). SDO148.

'(22) Whiteway Farm (924812), house, dairy, granary, barn, etc. (Plate 51), has an architectural history difficult to determine. The earliest work is of the late 16th or early 17th century.

The Farmhouse, of two storeys, is L-shaped on plan with the main front to the S. where are three three-light windows and one two-light window on the ground floor and three three-light windows on the first floor; they, like the windows described below, have hollow-chamfered surrounds and mullions. The present central doorway has a four-centred head; a second doorway, now blocked, further W. is similar to it. All the ground-floor openings have rubble relieving arches. The N. wall has, on the ground floor, a three-light window near the W. end and a small single light nearly opposite the front doorway and, on the first floor, another three-light window close to the re-entrant angle. The N. wing has a doorway with four-centred head and four three-light windows on the E. face, the lower openings again with relieving arches; it had a doorway opposite that just described and four windows on the W. face, but the doorway is now a window and only one original window survives. The roofs have been reconstructed to a lower pitch than the original.

The plan of the main block comprised three rooms, the one in the middle being unheated and lit by the small N. window. The fireplace at the W. end has moulded jambs and a four-centred head with hollowed spandrels; it is probably of the late 16th or early 17th century. How much of the building is to be associated with this fireplace is not clear, since the greater thickness of the W. wall may imply either a different building phase or a considerable reconstruction; if the latter, then either very early and continuing the initial building tradition or later with the careful re-use of the old items. The N. wing is an addition but here again the similarity of detail and the use of relieving arches suggest that it is an early one. The plan must have included an unheated room, probably a pantry, at the S. end, and a kitchen; in this last, the opposed doorways close to the fireplace are unusual. In the N. gable wall is a blocked opening possibly indicating a window to a former staircase where the oven now is.'

<3> National Record of the Historic Environment, 887208 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Sep 14 2023 11:52AM