Camoys Court

Description

Farmhouse, probably originally a fortified house. Early C14 and C17. Coursed squared limestone rubble and some chequer brick; old plain-tile roofs with brick stacks. Double range with garderobe annexe and subsidiary wing. 2 storeys plus attic. Double-gabled front, with lower range extending to left, has irregular fenestration, mostly sashes but with a 3-light ground-floor casement to left, and a leaded cross window with a keyblock flat arch to right at first floor; gables have small leaded casements. The doorway to right of centre has a canopy on Doric columns and there is a second doorway to left of centre. The right return wall has late C19 brick bay windows. The rear of the C14 left range has an arched window at first floor with 2 ogee-headed lights and a tracery light. A 2-storey block attached to the left rear angle of the range was probably a garderobe wing and has 2 narrow windows with internal splays. C18 windows to rear. Double-span roof has a large central ridge stack. Interior: C17 range to right of through passage has a large open fireplace with a timber bressumer. C14 range has, at ground floor, a longitudinal beam carried on a Samson post with solid brackets; first floor has the roll-moulded wall plates and tie beams of the 3-bay wagon roof which is now above a later attic floor. The 2 crown-post trusses have octagonal posts with the remains of moulded capitals and roll-moulded 4-way arched braces. The range was probably the solar of a vanished hall and probably dates from the "licence to crenellate" granted to Sir Richard de Louches in 1318. The property later passed to Sir Thomas Camoys. The site is moated. (Listed Building Report)

Camoise Court Farm is the oldest house in the village. It lies on the Thame 200 yards west by south of Chislehampton Bridge, and incorporates part of a 14th-century house that was once the property of Sir Richard de Louches of Great Milton. He was licensed to crenellate his Chislehampton house in 1318. Later the property passed, as did the Great Milton lands, to the famous Sir Thomas Camoys and so acquired its name. The central block of the present farmhouse is the medieval part, (fn. 40) and there are traces of the medieval moat. The house is built of coursed rubble on a north and south axis with gables at each end; it has a square projection at the southeast angle, which is thought to have been the garderobe; its walls are of medieval thickness. At present there are two stories and attics, but the original house appears to have consisted of a low groundfloor room and a solar above that was open to the roof; a possible hall, west of it, perhaps of timber, has been re-placed. The original wall-plate with roll-mouldings is visible and there is a deeply splayed window of 14th-century date about 8 feet from the ground in the south wall. It is of two trefoiled ogeeheaded lights. A window of the same date and on the same level but in the east wall was recently covered up. The chamfered entrance to what seems to have been a garderobe also remains. The 14th-century gable above the room contains a cradle roof of three bays of which the two king-posts and curved braces with roll-moulding can be seen.
A straight joint on the north front, to the west of the 14th-century opening (two original jambs remain), marks the building of two stories and an attic, probably in the early 17th century, to the west of the central block. It was built of coursed rubble to match the old house, but the west side was rebuilt in brick in about 1880. An early-17th-century brick fireplace was discovered in 1956. In the early 19th century a new entrance to the house was made —a Doric porch with fluted columns under a flat roof. (VCH 1962)