Tatlingbury Farmhouse, Including Garden Walls Adjoining to the West, Capel, Kent

Description

TQ 64 NW CAPEL FIVE OAK GREEN ROAD
(south side)
1/259 Tatlingbury Farmhouse,
including garden walls
20.10.54 adjoining to the west
GV II*

Farmhouse. Mid C15 with various C16, C17, and early C18 improvements, some
C19 modernisation. Timber-framed although most of the front wall has been
rebuilt or faced up with C18 or C19 brick; Flemish bond red brick with the
earliest brickwork including a higher proportion of burnt headers; rear and
end walls still partly timber-framed, either weatherboarded or hung with peg-
tile; brick stacks and chimneyshafts; peg-tile roof.

Plan and Development: Essentially an L-plan building. The main block faces
onto the garden to the west. It has a 4-room plan and these are the principal
rooms. At the right (south) end there is a large parlour with a projecting
rear lateral stack. Next to it is a relatively wide entrance hall with the
main stair to rear in the outshots there which also contain a corridor running
behind the left (northern) 2 rooms. Centre left is the dining room occupying
most of the medieval hall and at the left end another parlour. This parlour
and the dining room are separated by an axial stack serving back-to-back
fireplaces. A 2-room plan kitchen/services block projects at right angles to
rear of the left end parlour behind the corridor. The kitchen has a
projecting outer lateral stack (now disused).

The main block contains the remains of a mid C15 hall-house. The 2-bay hall
occupied the present dining room and adjoining part of the northern parlour.
It was open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. There was
certainly another one-bay room to south (the present entrance hall). It is
not clear whether this end was floored. A fragment of a moulded beam at the
southern end of the hall could be part of a low partition screen; it looks too
low for a dais beam. Little carpentry is exposed at the north end and the
roof has been rebuilt. It is difficult to disentangle the various C16 and C17
improvements in the main block. At that time much of the timber-framing of
the rear wall was replaced, the hall was floored and the hall stack inserted.
The southern parlour is probably a C17 extension. At the north end the hall
crosswall was removed at ground floor level in order to create a large room
that end and it was given a fireplace; this probably happened in the C18 or
19. No evidence shows that the rear outshots and kitchen block are any
earlier than the C18 or C19.

2 storeys with attics in the roofspace of the main block.

Exterior: Irregular 4-window front of various C19 sashes; 20 and 24-pane
sashes and the hall has a tripartite sash with central 16-pane sash. The
ground floor windows have low brick segmental arches. Front doorway is right
of centre and contains a C19 part-glazed panelled door. Marks on the
brickwork above show that it once had a tented roof hood or porch. Main roof
is hipped to left and half-hipped to right. The right (south) end wall has a
20-pane sash in the blocked opening of a wider window. This end is tile hung
at first floor level. At the back the southern parlour stack has tile
weatherings. The outshot is weatherboarded and contains one probably C18
window to the staircase, single light containing diamond panes of old leaded
glass. The rear block is brick at ground floor level and tile hung above. It
contains C20 casements with glazing bars.

Interior: Includes good carpentry detail from all the main building phases.
However little of the medieval structure shows below the roof. The crossbeam
in the northern parlour was originally a rail in the crosswall at that end of
the medieval hall and has mortises along its soffit from the removed ground
floor frame. At the southern end of the hall is a moulded rail which has been
cut through at both ends. It seems positioned too low for a dais beam and may
be from a low partition screen. Any other medieval carpentry below roof level
is hidden behind later plaster.

The southern parlour is a C17 extension. Its crossbeam is chamfered with step
stops. The relatively small brick fireplace here has a replacement oak
lintel. In the dining room/former hall the axial beam and joists are
chamfered with step stops. The large brick fireplace here has been somewhat
restored but much is original; the bricks are small and narrow and the oak
lintel is chamfered with scroll stops. The fireplace backing onto it in the
northern parlour is C18 or C19. At first floor level much of the rear wall
was rebuilt in the late C16 or C17. The frame has straight tension braces and
thre is no wall post supporting the medieval open truss tie-beam over the
hall. However part of the frame is medieval including a massive wall post at
the south end corner of the medieval house. The first floor chambers of the
main block mostly have chamfered axial beams with step stops.

The remains of the original mid C15 roof survive mostly over the medieval
hall. The open truss has a tie-beam of large scantling with the remains of
moulded arch braces and (along the front wall) a length of a moulded wall
plate. Crown post above is square in section with shallow moulded base and
cap. Its 4-way braces are wide and one is carved from the solid. The
structure over the medieval hall is smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire.
At the southern end of the medieval hall is a closed crown post truss with
down braces. To south there is evidence that the medieval roof was hipped and
the roof structure here is clean. Most of the common rafter A-frames are
medieval but they were taken down and re-erected when the roof was mended.
These repairs could well have been quite early since it involved scarfing a
new (and clean) length of crown purlin over the northern bay of the hall. It
extends to the northern gable where there was originally another closed crown
post truss. The roof over the C17 parlour extension is carried on collared
common rafter couples.

The front garden is flanked by probably C19 brick walls. The northern one,
between the garden and farmyard, bows northwards each side of a gateway with
square-section gate posts with pyramid caps. The walls are built of flying
bond red brick with bricks on top shaped for weathered coping.

Listing NGR: TQ6382645009

External Links

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