25782

 

II  

Designated  

27/09/2001  

27/09/2001  

Fishpool Farmhouse: rear range  

 

Monmouthshire  

Mitchel Troy  

Monmouth  

Dingestow  

344672  

210065  

 

About 1km WSW of the church of St Dingat, at the top of a farm track off the N side of the minor road between Dingestow and Tregare to the N of Dingestow Court  

Domestic  

 

Probably built in the earlier C17. Fox & Raglan identified it as a "Type IIB", i.e, a stone-built smaller house with a two-room plan, with attic or semi-attic. At the time of their visit (c.1950-2) it had a "Tudor" doorhead and diamond mullions in the windows; a side-entry, and C18 addition. The entry is now covered by a single-storey corridor linking it to the rear of the C18 front range.  

A house of low proportions and plain materials which, tucked away behind the C18 front range as it is, could be mistaken for an agricultural building except that it has a gable chimney and a pair of small dormer windows. It is built of mixed brown and grey rubble, unevenly coursed and with remains of whitewash; the roof is steeply pitched and covered by regularly-coursed blue slate on the front slope and corrugated sheet on the rear slope. It has a 2-unit plan on a N-S axis facing E, with a 1-unit addition at each end. Most of the the right-hand half of the E front of the original portion is now covered by the linking corridor; to the left is a small segmental-headed 2-light window; inside the corridor to the right of the doorway, a small 2-light casement; and the eaves line is broken by two small slate-clad gabled dormers with 2-light casements. At the right-hand gable is a short square rendered chimney with an emphatic chamfered cornice. Attached at the S end is an added workshop or stable which has a doorway at the junction, with an old board door, a small square window near the left corner with an internal wooden shutter; and, in the S gable wall, a plain doorway with a board door, and a rectangular piching door in the gable above. The addition at the other end has a small window in the front wall and a square plain-glazed window at loft level of the N gable. At the rear the original range has a low buttress near the N end, a modern rectangular 2-light casement to the right of this and larger 3-light one offset right of centre, and a small shuttered opening near the S end. The addition at the N end, which appears to have been a 1-unit cottage, has a segmental-headed doorway offset right of centre and a small segmental-headed window either side, that to the left with plain glazing and the other with an outward-opening wooden shutter. The rear of the addition at the S end is blind.  

The ground floor has two sturdy chamfered lateral beams and exposed undecorated joists to the boarded upper floor. Between the beams is an inserted enclosed staircase which mounts over the W beam, beneath which there was formerly a stud-and-plank partition (removed to enlarge the small room to the rear of the staircase). The rear wall is about 55cm thick. The E gable wall is about 2 metres thick, and has contains a bricked-up bread-oven in the rear corner and a very deep cupboard in the front corner (probably the poisition of a former spiral staircase). On the upper floor (now a store) are three collar trusses, that to the W with a pegged collar, that to the E with a nailed-on collar replacing the original, and that in the centre with a lath-and-plaster partition.  

Included as an an interesting example of a C17 farmhouse which, despite alteration to the openings and some remodelling of the interior, retains the essential character of a humble C17 vernacular building; and for group value with the front range (q.v.) and the barn (q.v.).