Listed Building record MDO10198 - Wake Court Farmhouse, Bishops Caundle

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 15 (Monograph). SDO146.

‘(5) WAKE COURT (69981237), ½ m. S.E. of the church, is a farmhouse of two storeys with attics, with walls of rubble, partly rendered, and stone-slated roofs with tiling near the ridge. The main house, facing E., is probably of the first half of the 18th century; it contains several stop-chamfered ceiling beams and on the first floor there is at least one beam, evidently reused, with mouldings for a panelled ceiling. Detached and running W. from the N. end of the house is a 16th-century range of one storey with an attic; it is now used as a workshop and storehouse but it must originally have been the farmhouse itself. According to Coker (p. 96) it was in ruins in the 17th century. The walls of the 16th-century wing are of rubble, and all the window and door openings appear to be secondary. On the ground floor are three rooms. The E. room has an original open fireplace with chamfered ashlar jambs and a heavy timber bressummer with a continuous chamfer and a raised centre. N. of the fireplace is a spiral staircase to the attic. The ceiling has a massive chamfered beam with run-out stops. The unheated middle room is divided from the E. room by an original plank-and-muntin partition with chamfered muntins pegged to chamfered and grooved top and bottom rails; a doorway with a four-centred head at the N. end of the partition is chamfered on the E. face only. The middle room has two chamfered ceiling beams with run-out stops; in the S. wall a straight vertical joint and a timber lintel indicate the position of a former opening, now blocked. The middle room is separated from the W. room by a plank-and-muntin partition similar to the first but probably reset. The W. end of the range is probably of the 19th century; it incorporates an open fireplace with ashlar jambs, a chamfered oak bressummer and an oven in the N. jamb. The spiral stair in the E. room leads to an attic chamber ceiled at the level of the lower purlins but with a central E.-W. beam exposed. The loft over the middle and W. rooms is reached by outside steps of rubble, built against the S. wall. The partition between the E. chamber and the loft is combined with a framed truss in which the principals rise from a tie-beam at wall-plate level and are collared at half height; a king-post between the collar and the tie-beam is morticed to receive the tenon of the ceiling beam in the E. chamber; the panels of the truss are filled with wattle-and-daub to form the W. wall of the chamber. Three purlins are housed into the principals, and at the apex is a ridge piece set diagonally. While this truss and the roof to the E. of it are original, the roof to the W. is probably not older than the 19th century.’

Record last edited

Mar 24 2015 3:56PM