Kings Arms Public House

Details

SP4631 DEDDINGTON HORSEFAIR (North side) 8/180 King's Arms Public House 08/12/55 (Formerly listed as King's Arms Hotel)

GV II Inn, now public house. Probably early/mid C16, re-modelled mid C17 and altered late C18/early C19. Rendered stone; Stonesfield-slate and Welsh-slate roofs with rubble-and-brick stacks. 2-unit through-passage plan plus long cross-wing. 2 storeys plus attic. Centre of 4-window front has a gabled rectangular 2-storey bay window, with 6-light stone-mullioned windows below flat label moulds in both floors; gable wall of cross wing, to left, has a similar bay window at ground floor only, now without its mullions, and has a 16-pane sash above. Bay window- may be C17 additions. Remaining bays of front include a third bay window, probably early C18, with a 6-light casement above which are two 16-pane sashes. Bay windows are linked by a C20 flat canopy, sheltering fielded 6-panel doors, set between the projections. Steep-pitched roof has a brick gable stack to right and returns on left to the 2-window cross wing, which has a large projecting lateral stack in line with main range. Wing has C18 and C19 casements, and has a C19 stone rear gable wall. Rear of main range has C20 extensions, partly masking a massive rendered lateral stack with numerous offsets, and has a gabled stair projection which is probably a C17 addition. Interior: main range has the moulded heads of through-passage partitions, to left with wide mortices for a plank screen. Room to right (probably originally unheated) has stop-chamfered spine and lateral beams. Room to left, with a large rubble-arched open fireplace, has heavy stop-chamfered intersecting beam and lateral beams; small Tudor-arched wooden doorway leads to cross-wing. (Rooms now combined into bar). Stair projection to rear of right room has a mid/late-C17 open-well stair with large turned balusters and a square handrail, the lowest balustade extended upwards with 2 more tiers of contemporary balusters. First floor has remains of a chamber fireplace, the bressumer chamfer originally returning down the jambs, 3-bay roof, originally separate from cross-wing roof, retains the timber-framed left gable (now internal) with closely-spaced studs, and has a similar truss over the through passage; between them is an arch-braced collar truss with a later tiebean. Roof was probably reconstructed with new purlins and an attic floor in C17 after structural failure but retains massive rafters and 2 curved windbraces. Cross-wing contains a long room with smaller stop-chamfered intersecting beans and perimeter beams dividing the ceiling into 8 panels; rear room has a heavy chamfered beam with closely-spaced unchamfered joists; a timber-framed cross passage (with later stair) divides the range at both floors. Roof is much altered and reinforced but retains at least one arch-braced collar truss. Neither roof shows smoke blackening, but principal first-floor room in each range was probably originally open to rafters. A rare example of the use of partial timber-framing in a stone-building region. (Buildings of England: Oxfordshire: p571; VCH: Oxfordshire: Vol XI, p86)

Listing NGR: SP4666831754

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

243905

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Salzman, L F, The Victoria History of the County of Oxford, (1983), 86
Pevsner, N, Sherwood, J, The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, (1974), 571

End of official list entry

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