Millennium Project
Under construction
Rob Forsyth
This article draws heavily on research contained in planning documents submitted to Cherwell District Council on behalf of Mr & Mrs Hoya-Miller the current (2024) owners of Castle End (see acknowledgements at foot of article).
The house, formerly one farmhouse with surrounding farm buildings and land, was divided into two properties in 1973. The northern range of the farmhouse retained the name Castle End - more recently renamed Castle End House - and the southern range named Monks Court, but renamed in 2007 as Applewood.
The two buildings are together Grade II* Listed. Raymond Wood-Jones in Traditional Architecture of the Banbury Region (RW-J) first published 1963 states that Castle End as it was named before the subdivision, contains evidence of domestic construction of the late mediaeval period.
The house is made up of two builds, the 17th century wing which contains hall and parlour with a porch dated 1647, and to the south, an extended service wing of 18th century character, now Castle End House. However close examination especially of the roof structure reveals that this wing originated as an earlier house built before c 1525 retaining its original entrance doorway with 4 centred arch and two surviving bays of the fine mediaeval roof. RW-J concludes that this wing may have contained a single-story hall of exceptional height or there may have originally been a first floor containing the hall. He considers that the east end of the original house was the service end, but that this was swept away in the rebuilding of 1647, when it was replaced by a finer hall and parlour, now the current Applewood.
On the 1808 Deddington Enclosure Map, what is now Castle End House and Applewood is shown as a farmhouse and associated buildings. It was originally known as Blount’s Farm, because it belonged to the Blount family who were extensive landowners in the 15th cent (see Victoria County History CH Vol 11(1983) (VCH)).
The Blount estate later came into the hands of Sir Thomas Pope who transferred it with other lands to Christ Church, Oxford in the mid-16th cent.
Pre enclosure the house was a homestead occupied by a succession of tenant farmers whose lands would be scattered throughout the Open Fields. They held the land on college leases which were regarded as good as a freehold in that they were perpetually renewable. Blount’s Farm was tenanted by a number of Deddington farming families, notably the Higgins family (who carried out the 1647 rebuilding) in the mid 17th cent who styled themselves ‘gentlemen.’ The Appletree family held the farm from 1710 until the late 19th century.
However, by the early 19th cent the house was occupied by the Turner family. Thomas William Turner (1800-1863) in 1825 was the first Turner to occupy what was then known as The Green. He married Elizabeth Newman (1799-1878). He was a doctor and surgeon. Their sixth child was Edward William, also a doctor. With his wife Louisa Ann Colman he lived in the house, by now called The Poplars, with nine children. Their second son Thomas William also became a doctor (for details and pictures, see the Deddington History website). The Turner family occupied the house until at least 1911.
In 1932 Christ Church sold the house, with 8 acres to the Rev David G Loveday, and he renamed it Castle End. Rev D G Loveday later became Bishop of Dorchester
As the VCH described in 1983: Castle End stands alone at the east end of the town, close to the castle. The house comprises a long front portion in two builds, with a central gabled porch dated 1647, and at the rear a passage, staircase, and service wings. The range south of the entrance porch, though rebuilt in the later 18th century, incorporates a late-medieval hall, and the original doorway of c.1500 presumably gave access to a screens passage. The northern range, presumably built by Thomas Higgins to replace an earlier service bay, is consistent with the date on the porch and includes an unusually large and lofty hall and parlour lit by tall ovolo-mullioned windows. There are chambers on the first and second floors, the latter lit by large dormers. There are late 18th century additions at the rear.
Listing Details:
SP43SE DEDDINGTON CASTLE STREET (South side)
3/150 Castle End and Monks Court (now Applewood)
08/12/55 (Formerly listed as Castle End)
Listing NGR: SP4700931700
II*
Large farmhouse, now 2 dwellings. Early C16 and 1647 (on datestone), altered and extended
late C18. Marlstone rubble with ashlar dressings and wooden lintels; coursed squared marlstone
with limestone-ashlar dressings; Stonesfield-slate roofs with ashlar stacks. 4-unit plan in 2 builds
with added outshut and rear wings. 2 storeys and 2 storeys plus attic. Rubble right half of front
is at least partly C16 or earlier, but now has three 16-pane late-C18 sashes at each floor, all
with wooden lintels. To left of the windows a fine 4-centre-arched C16 moulded stone doorway
with label is sheltered by a 2-storey porch, with a 2-light ovolo-moulded stone-mullioned
window above a moulded stone doorway (probably restored) with moulded label and lozenge
stops; the gable has a panel inscribed 1647. Probably contemporary, although without the
chamfered plinth, is the 3-window range to left, which has similar mullioned windows of 2, 3
and 5 lights aligned below 2 stone gables, and has an additional 2-light window without a label
set between the first-floor windows; the ground-floor windows are unusually large but are
probably C17. Left end wall has further mullioned windows. Steep-pitched roof has stacks to
both gables and to right of centre. Right gable all is rebuilt and returns to a late-C17/C18 rear
wing with later windows. To rear of main range a late-C18 outshut, now partly raised, includes a
higher section containing a tall arched stair window with Gothick glazing bars; at the left end of
the range the outshut extends to rear to link with a small C18 range, probably originally stable
and loft, now part of Monks Court (now renamed Applewood).
Interior: right half of Castle End has stop-chamfered cross beams and a 2-bayroof. The central
truss, with collar and cambered chamfered tiebeam, supports 2 rows of butt purlins. The roof
may be early C18 or earlier. Left half has a 2-bay early-C16 roof, with trenched purlins and a
ridge beam supported on a fine arch-braced collar truss worked with hollow chamfers. A large
Tudor-arched stone fireplace with recessed spandrels and an arched single-light window (now
internal) survive at first floor and are probably contemporary with the roof
Applewood (formerly Monks Court) retains a mid-C17 open fireplace with the Bessemer chamfer returning down the jambs, but was re-modelled internally late C18 and has joinery of that date, including a stair
with stick balusters and an inlaid ramped and wreathed mahogany handrail; the stair hall has a
4-centred plaster vault. The second early-C16 truss illustrated by Wood Jones has been destroyed by the construction of a party wall. There is no evidence of the open hall, but it is likely to have occupied the site of Applewood (formerly Monks Court).
Buildings of England Traditional Domestic Architecture in the Banbury Region: 1963, pp222-224