Sunny Dale / Croftdene / Croft Dene

Description

This information is taken from the statutory List as it was in 2001 and may not be up to date.

DARTINGTON SX76SE WEEK 1/176 Croft Dene (formerly listed as Sunny-Dale and No 1 Croftdene) 9.2.61

GV II

House converted into 2 and later reunited into one house. Late medieval, extended and remodelled in C17 and later. Rendered stone rubble. Steeply pitched dry slate roof, left end half hipped right end gabled with rendered stair with tapered cap and drystones. Two large rendered rear lateral stacks enclosed within rear outshuts which have catslide roofs.

Plan: The plan is 3 rooms, the 2 rooms to the left are the original house which was extremely or in part open to the roof. The circa mid to late C17 floors were inserted and the plan now has a cross passage between the 2 rooms with a newel stairs at the back of the passage; the left hand room is the smaller and each room has a rear lateral stack. Also in circa mid to late C17 probably when the floors were inserted, a one room plan addition was built at the right end with a wide passage or narrow unheated room between, and a gable end stack. There is a rounded recess in the rear wall of the passage or narrow room, probably a newel stair. The partition between the passage (or room) and the room to the right may be more recent and therefore originally one large room. 2 phases of outshuts have been added to the rear, the deeper outshut behind the left end.

Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 5 window range in 3:2 arrangement the right hand 2 windows being the C17 addition. The left hand 3 window part has C19 3-light casements with glazing bars and central doorway with circa C17 chamfered wooden doorframe with C20 door and probably C17 or C18 large rendered stone porch with lean-to roof. The right hand 2-window addition has small C19 to C20 2-light casements with glazing bars on first floor, and C20 casements on ground floor with large C20 glazed porch. At the right end a lean-to with garage door at front. At rear 2 large rendered lateral stacks to right and 2 phases of outshuts, the shorter and deeper to the right with a catslide roof, the longer and shallower to the left is below the eaves level of the main range.

Interior: Thin unstopped chamfered cross-beam in the left room of the original house with a blocked rear fireplace. The centre room or right room of the original house has closely spaced chamfered waney cross-beams also without stops and a rear fireplace with stone rubble jambs and later unchamfered timber lintel. The partitions between the passage and the left room and central room are plastered stud or planks, and there is a wide stone newel staircase rising from the back of the passage. The other passage (or narrow room) between the central and right hand rooms has large rough joists and a rounded recess in its rear wall possibly for a newel stairs but now with C20 stairs across it. The right hand end room had C20 ceiling joists and a fireplace in the gable end wall blocked with a smaller C20 fireplace. On the first floor over the centre room a rear fireplace with a chamfered lintel.

Roof: the stone rubble partition wall at the right end of the centre room is heightened with cob into which is embedded (and supported on the stone wall below) a smoke-blackened raised hip cruck of a medieval roof which was replaced probably in circa mid to late C17 when a new roof was built over the whole building which has lapped and pegged collars and morticed apexes.

the roof over the right end is the same but the apexes have been pulled apart and high collars inserted lapped and pegged to the principals.

Listing NGR: SX7797662410

Content

This is part of the Series: IOE01/1943 IOE Records taken by Russell J Stephens; within the Collection: IOE01 Images Of England

Rights

© Mr Russell J Stephens. Source: Historic England Archive

This photograph was taken for the Images of England project