Listed Building record MDO4520 - Old Farm, Fiddleford, Fiddleford, Okeford Fitzpaine

A two-storey house built in the late sixteenth century, with 17th and 18th-century additions and alterations. The building has rubble and timber-framed walls set on rubble plinths, and a thatched roofs. A jointed cruck is exposed in the gabled N. wall and there are others in a barn nearby.

<1> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 205-6 (Monograph). SDO136.

‘(33) OLD FARM (80531310), house, nearly 1½ m. N. of (1), is of two storeys, with rubble and timber-framed walls above rubble plinths, and thatched roofs. It dates from the late 16th century, with additions and alterations of the 17th and 18th centuries. A jointed cruck is exposed in the gabled N. wall and there are others in an adjacent barn.
The plan of the farmhouse is T-shaped, with the 16th-century range at the head of the T, facing W.; the E. range, the stem of the T, is mainly of the 17th century. The W. front is an 18th-century addition to the 16th-century range; it is of coursed rubble and has a central doorway, three-light casement windows on both floors to the N., and modern bay-windows to the S. At the S. end of this range is a single-storied 18th-century extension; it has a modern ground-floor window but in the attic under the thatched roof is an old three-light window with a heavy chamfered oak surround. The N. end of the range shows the original 16th-century timber-framing, with horizontal and vertical members above a rubble plinth; the in-filling is rendered. The N.W. corner was rebuilt when the 18th-century W. front was added but the N.E. corner retains the curved corner-post of an original jointed cruck; ground and first-floor casement windows are modern. The original timber framing is exposed on the E. return of the range, where it is capped by a chamfered eaves plate. In this wall are two blocked windows with chamfered timber surrounds; one consists of two very narrow lights, the other is of three lights. The 17th-century E. range is of one storey with dormer-windowed attics and has walls of rubble.
Inside, the house has been much altered and the original plan is lost. The N. ground-floor room of the W. range has deeply chamfered intersecting beams and wall-plates making a six-panel ceiling. The fireplace has a wooden bressummer with a raised centre and double ovolo mouldings; the jambs are of stone. The next room to the S. has a moulded beam with chamfered stops, and a fireplace with an ovolo-moulded head. Further S., in the 18th-century extension, is a plank-and-muntin partition, perhaps of 17th-century origin. The kitchen in the E. range has a chamfered beam and a corner fireplace with a chamfered four-centred head and continuous jambs. On the first floor, the stairs which are largely modern include part of a late 17th-century balustrade with turned balusters and a moulded newel-post with an acorn finial. Some first-floor rooms have chamfered beams and there are three fireplaces with chamfered and moulded surrounds with raised centres. The chamber in the E. range retains fragments of moulded plasterwork.
The Barn S. of the farmhouse is of weather-boarded timber-framed construction; the roof includes two jointed cruck trusses, perhaps reused.'

<2> National Record of the Historic Environment, 206284 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 16 2024 4:20PM