BUILDINGS
The Built Character
Except for the parish church, which makes little visual
impact, Kencot's surviving buildings are all postmedieval and most originated as farmhouses. All but one
of the former farmhouses and the former rectory house
have a 17th-century core, but a plain 18th- and early
19th-century style of building predominates, a result of
the ambitious building activity that took place as affluent
gentry or professional families settled in the village after
1700. The houses lie spread out along the main streets,
separated from their neighbours either by large
farmyards entered from the street or by ornamental
gardens. There are few cottages, and some of those that
existed in 1872 seem to have been jerry-built speculations. (fn. 1) Until the later 20th century all degrees of building
were constructed in the slobbered limestone rubble,
stone slate, and thatch conventional for the area. General
availability of building stone was clearly important and
public access to the village quarry was guaranteed at
inclosure in 1767. (fn. 2) The 20th century intrudes little apart
from a small group of council housing, begun soon after
1960, (fn. 3) a few private houses, and the unassuming Carter
Institute, built in 1912–15. (fn. 4) The integrity of the village
centre has been maintained partly through the protection afforded by statutory Listing and partly because of
local planning policies which, since the early 1980s, have
discouraged development in the county's smallest
villages. (fn. 5) New building has been mainly restricted to
conservative alterations and conversion of agricultural
buildings to residential use.
The Parish Church
St George's church (Figs 55–6) (fn. 6) was built in the mid
12th century with a small nave and chancel, as can be
seen from the nave's walling and proportions, blocked
north doorway, shafted jambs of the chancel arch with
impost mouldings continued along the nave east wall,
and the south doorway which resembles the chancel arch
in style and has a figurative tympanum. The carving of a
centaur shooting an arrow into the mouth of a dragon
has been interpreted, according to the probably later
carved legend, as Sagittarius, a subject which recurs on
the font at Hook Norton church, also connected with the
d'Oilly family. (fn. 7)
In the 13th century the chancel was rebuilt, the nave
remodelled by the insertion of two-light windows, and a
two-stage tower added. In the late 13th or early 14th
century the chancel was embellished when the chancel
arch was modified and a piscina with credence shelf was
created; windows were enlarged or replaced in nave,
chancel, (fn. 8) and tower. Despite a donation to the fabric of a
chapel in 1501 (fn. 9) the church was not enlarged, though
about that time windows to imitate a clerestory were
inserted high in the nave's south wall, and a new timber
ceiling was constructed from which stone corbels
survive. Probably between c. 1509 and c. 1530 Robert
Weston, a London mercer, and his wife paid for
construction of the south porch and the third stage of
the tower (together with its south stairtower) to house
the three bells they had donated, one of which survives. (fn. 10)
56. Kencot church, tympanum over south doorway
Though no building activity was recorded during the
17th or 18th centuries, quite lavish liturgical furnishings
were provided. (fn. 11) Large items, including a pulpit and a
new bowl and cover for the 13th-century font, were
installed in the first half of the 17th century presumably
to make good damage. At the same period an unusual
timber monument with hinged doors was installed to
commemorate the non-resident Richard Colchester (d.
1643), son-in-law of the former lord mayor of London
Sir Hugh Hammersley: Hammersley was lessee of the
manor house, and his family held the advowson. (fn. 12) The
nave was ceiled in 1814 (renewed in 1962), (fn. 13) and the
west gallery on classical columns was installed at about
that time; the medieval south window lighting it was
enlarged in 1854 to give more light to the singers. (fn. 14)
Heavy mid 19th-century restoration included repewing
in 1858, (fn. 15) reconstruction of the chancel, and replacement following the two-light pattern of the main nave
and chancel windows; the chancel was decorated with
stained glass (including the east window by Powell &
Sons), and with stencilled designs since removed. (fn. 16) The
chancel was mainly refurnished during the later 20th
century, some of the joinery being the work of Richard
Fyson of Manor Farm. In 2000 Sebastian Brooke carved
the inner face of the tympanum with a lamb and flag. (fn. 17)
Houses and Farms
Building in the 17th Century
At least six surviving houses were built between c. 1580
and 1700. Most followed a common local pattern of two
storeys and attics with three rooms on each of floor,
sometimes on an L-plan, and with a cross-passage
against a central stack. Though not all houses can have
been new, from the 1630s the documented accommodation of fairly affluent inhabitants seems to have been
arranged over two storeys or more. Thomas Turner used
his main ground-floor rooms as parlour, hall, buttery,
and kitchen in 1635, (fn. 18) but not all houses had parlours,
and attic floors were variably used for chambers, or as
garrets for storage or for storage and sleeping. (fn. 19) This
impression is reinforced by the findings of the hearth tax
assessors, who in 1662 recorded that among 19 houses
nearly half had only two heated rooms, and four houses
had one. No house was as large as the Hammersleys'
manor house (a predecessor of Kencot Manor), which
had at least nine hearths in 1662 and 1665, though in
1662 the rector had seven hearths and two properties
owned by the yeoman Turners had five. (fn. 20)
Much of the surviving work, which has hollowchamfered mullioned windows with hoodmoulds as the
most elaborate architectural elements, is mid 17th-century. At Manor Farm (Fig. 52) a two-storeyed front
range was built onto a perhaps originally more extensive
late 16th- or early 17th-century part, possibly by the
Turners. (fn. 21) The L-plan south range of the rectory house
seems to be the building erected shortly before 1634, to
which seven hearths were ascribed in 1662, though in
1685 it was described as having only two bays. (fn. 22) Home
Farm seems to have been built on an L-plan (fn. 23) and so does
the Malt House, though that may incorporate two adjacent houses. Two bays of the standard plan remain at
Kencot Lodge (Fig. 49), and the core of Wychwood is a
single bay of what appears to have been a very prosperous home, to judge from its three- and four-light
windows and the remains of ornamental plasterwork in
what may have been the parlour. (fn. 24) Similar windows at
Red Rose Cottages (Fig. 57), Kencot's most intact house
of the 1650s according to its datestone, light three rooms
of equal area on each floor, an arrangement expressed on
the façade by three matching gables.
New Houses and Improvements, 1700–1918
57. Red Rose Cottages from the south-west
The house type of two storeys and three units continued
to be used well into the next century. Two bays of a small
early 18th-century farmhouse survive at Belham Hayes,
but the most complete farmhouse of the period is
Kencot Cottage (Fig. 58), which has a framed timber
staircase in an external stair tower, an advance on the
newel stair against the chimney of the 17th-century
houses and smaller 18th-century ones. It also retains its
original farm layout with dairy and barn attached in line
to the north, and evidence of the farmyard behind. Of
the much larger Kencot Manor, possibly rebuilt or
enlarged by the Jordans c. 1708, (fn. 25) only one bay survives,
its higher status betrayed by grander proportions,
fashionable corner fireplaces, and a better standard of
construction.
Although Kencot's inhabitants had included gentry
and wealthy yeomen since the Middle Ages, the number
of gentry and professional people who chose to be resident and desired appropriate accommodation increased
in the 18th century. (fn. 26) Kencot House (Fig. 50) seems to
have been the first house designed as a gentleman's residence rather than a farmhouse. It was built between c.
1730 and 1745 probably for William Stephens, (fn. 27) with
the type of baroque façade characterized by segmentalheaded windows with prominent keystones then used in
neighbouring Burford, and on an equally conservative
plan with a large asymmetrically-placed entrance hall.
The northern bay of the 17th-century farmhouse now
divided into Kencot Lodge and North Lodge (Fig. 49)
was rebuilt in similar style possibly by a member of the
same family (fn. 28) in order to create a more gracious entrance
and staircase hall leading to a panelled reception room
and bedroom of generous size. At Home Farm a
south-facing three-bay range with a hipped roof was
built at that period, and probably a little later Manor
Farm (Fig. 52) was also made more fashionable and
convenient by the addition of a classical doorcase and a
rear staircase tower.
58. Kencot Cottage and Kencot
green from the south-east
Otherwise the style of 18th- and early 19th-century
building was plain, even at Kencot Manor where, during
the Jordans' and Stephenses' time, the addition of an
L-plan range north of the early 18th-century bay
provided a staircase hall, another large reception room,
and large north-eastern kitchen behind it. (fn. 29) Smaller
houses were either extended in similar fashion, for
example Red Rose Cottages where two pitched-roofed
bays were added following the original alignment, or
were partly rebuilt: Wychwood, for example, was given
three new bays (later called Manor Farm Cottage), and
Belham Hayes one. Asthall Farm (Fig. 59), newly built in
the mid 18th century, is larger than earlier farmhouses,
but repeats the usual three-bay plan. Only one new
farmhouse, Kencot Hill Farm, was newly built after
inclosure, and by 1863 had extensive farm-buildings
including intercommunicating barn, wagon house,
cattle sheds and stable, and nearby barn, wagon house
and granary. (fn. 30) A similarly well-provided farmyard was
created at Manor Farm in the early 19th century, probably about 1829 when the house was extended north by
two bays, (fn. 31) and before 1881 the Malt House premises had
been extended south with a long malting. (fn. 32)
As at Manor Farm the service end of Kencot Manor
was extended north early in the 19th century. Services, as
well as circulation, were improved in all houses above
the meanest kind, for example at Belham Hayes where a
kitchen bay was added. Kencot House was doubled in
size probably in the 1830s, when another row of rooms
was added to the north apparently for Charles Loder
(formerly Stephens). The northern addition was
updated about a decade later by the addition of a grand
north-eastern room, and both eastern reception rooms
were made more important by having Gothick baywindows thrown out towards the garden. All the changes
were fashionable and high quality, especially the very
compact, top-lit central staircase hall decorated in a
refined neoclassical style. (fn. 33) The rectory house was
doubled in size in 1857 (fn. 34) when the architect designed a
tall, plain L-plan north-eastern block to interlock with
the 17th century house, which he enlarged by the
creation of well-lit attic rooms, and created on the east a
new main entrance giving access to a spine corridor and
staircase. An almost identical arrangement of entrance
and corridor was achieved when a western bay was
added at Asthall Farm. The existing entrance at Kencot
Manor was updated between c. 1880 and 1923 by adding
a large lobby-like porch. (fn. 35) The most complete mid 19th-century gentrification of a farmhouse occurred at
Kencot Cottage, which was given new windows, a spine
corridor, matchboard panelling and a timber floor in the
parlour, and cast-iron front railings. The attached barn
was converted to dairy, gig house, and stable, and
another barn was built on to its north end.
59. Asthall Farm, Kencot, from
the south-west
Adaptation 1918–2003
The 20th century saw a dramatic reduction in the
number of working farms (fn. 36) and the consequent conversion of farm buildings to domestic use, for example the
byre and hayloft joined to Kencot Lodge as a kitchen.
Only at Home Farm and Asthall Farm were farm buildings used for their original purpose in 2003. New work
was often done sympathetically, such as the alteration of
the 19th-century wing at Manor Farm to match the
17th-century range, (fn. 37) or the doctor's surgery added to
Kencot House as a sixth bay, indistinguishable from the
front, in the 1930s. (fn. 38) Ironically Kencot Cottage, so thoroughly transformed in the 19th century, remained unaltered between 1947 and 2003, except for the transfer of
the farmyard to the neighbouring Home Farm. (fn. 39)