Building record DUN 172 - Dingle Stone House, Dingle Hill

Built circa 1815, it represents a fine example of the Cottage Orné style that was highly popular among large estate owners in the late-18th and especially the first quarter of the-19th century, rooted in the Romantic Movement and its nostalgia for picturesque rustic forms as opposed to the stark symmetry of most Georgian brick houses. It was typified by traditional materials such as thatch, stone and timber-framing, but was by no means confined to cottages and could be applied to estate farmhouses and even substantial country retreats. The Stone House, as its name suggests, consists of flint-rubble with stone dressing beneath a steeply pitched fully hipped roof that was initially thatched as depicted in a painting of circa 1850 by the well-known antiquarian and artist Hamlet Watling. The thatch was replaced in the late-19th century using glazed pantiles with fleur-de-lis spiked ridge tiles in the Mock Gothic manner, and a small matching porch was also added, but the building has retained its striking appearance. The shape of the roof was intended to resemble that of a French manoir, and this was complemented by a rear courtyard fully enclosed by a tall, flint-rubble wall matching the house with stone dressing to its original corners and doors. A red-brick former bake-house in the courtyard’s south-western corner is a slightly later addition that appears to have been present at the time of the 1840 tithe map but was stripped of its historic character internally by a late-20th century conversion while remaining largely unaltered externally.