Listed building or place reference: LA0123

Historic site reference
Property: Hamptonne
Road name: La Rue de la Patente
Parish: St. Lawrence
Location: View on map
Grade: Listed Building Grade 1
Category: Farm group
Statement of significance: Hamptonne is of the greatest importance to the history and architecture of the Jersey farm - the complex of buildings illustrating the evolution of a Jersey farm from the 15th century to the 19th century.
Context: n/a
External Description: Hamptonne is an important farm complex comprising three houses - named after the former family owners Hamptonne, Langlois and Syvret - subsidiary working farm buildings set around two courtyards, a square colombier, associated landscaped gardens, fields, orchard and woodland. Hamptonne House is a rare surviving example of an early Jersey farmhouse - interpretations of its original date varying between c.1400 and the late 15th century. Over the centuries, this house has been transformed a number of times. It has one of only two complete king-post roofs in Jersey, indicating that originally it was an open hall - a large, single room open to the rafters. Uniquely, the king-post has no collars but raking struts. The first floor was added to allow the owner more privacy from the servants, and access was provided by building a stair tower (tourelle) on to the back of the house. At the end of the 17th century a two-storey extension (the Dower Wing) was added to the eastern gable in order to make the house larger. The Hamptonne family also added a porch and introduced oak panelling and moulded ceilings. Hamptonne House is now of rectangular plan, 2-storey, with 5 irregular bays. There are granite exterior walls with volieres a pigeons to the front façade. The stone arch over the front door has double voussoirs and the chamfer stop on the left has a Fleur de Lys. The three arch stones have moulded beading, but the upright portions have a plain chamfer. To the front of the doorway is a rare 17th century porch with pillars bearing the Hamptonne Arms, a 1640 ex situ sundial, and a reconstructed roof of Normandy slate. There is a chamfered straight stone lintel door to the east, irregular windows - some with ferramenta - a thatched roof and three granite chimneystacks. There are many internal features of interest including three medieval fireplaces. The 16th century tourelle staircase leads to a shoulderless arch on the first floor with hollow chamfer and decorated chamfer stop. To the front of Hamptonne House is the main south courtyard, with an impressive double entrance arch to the roadside - one of only two examples in Jersey bearing a date before the Civil War. It has a moulded beading in place of the more usual chamfer, and is dated 1637 with the initials LH and EH and the Hamptonne Arms. The initials are unusual in that they represent the father, Laurens, and the son, Edouard rather than the usual initials of a husband and wife. Facing the south side of the courtyard is the Langlois building, a single-storey range of farm buildings with a two-storey block at the west end believed to be an upper hall house - the first floor accessed by an unenclosed external stone staircase. This style of architecture was common in medieval Brittany; the animals and stores were kept downstairs and people lived in the rooms upstairs which were reached by an outside staircase. The upper floor round-arched doorway is of late 15th early 16th century appearance with a hollow chamfer. The doorway is rather unusual, with an eleven-stone arch (the average in Jersey being nine). The fireplace in the main room appears medieval in origin, perhaps modified c.1617 when work on the building is thought to have been carried out. It is of notable design with projecting jambs and large acanthus leaf chamfer stops. This room contains a fine oak-beamed ceiling of two bays in which the cross-beams served also as tie-beams for the roof trusses above; the trusses were destroyed in the early 20th century but there are indications that the roof was of the upper king-post type. Alongside La Rue de la Patente is a 2 storey, 10 bays range of buildings known as Syvret House - comprising a house dated at about 1833 and an adjoining pressoir (cider barn) built in 1834. The rooms are unusually tall and grand for a Jersey farmhouse and are more typical of the townhouses built in St. Helier at this time. The pressoir contains an apple crusher and a wooden twin-screw apple press. Integral to the interest and character of the farmstead are a number of outbuildings and associated gardens and grounds. On the north side of the upper courtyard are outbuildings added by the Syvrets in the 19th century including stables, a carriage house, bake house, washhouse and open shed. There is also a detached granite pigsty added to the south of the Langlois House. Charles II gave permission for Laurens Hamptonne to rebuild the colombier to the south of the main farmstead and this was completed in 1674 (a date stone set in the wall above the door recording the date of its rebuilding). This is one of only two square colombiers on the island, the other being at La Haule Manor. The colombier has a reconstructed hipped slate roof with open lantern and weather vane.
Internal Description: n/a
Special interest: Archaeological,Architectural,Historical

Documents

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