History of the Cottage
The cottage is a grade 2 listed building. The following is the entry in the Test Valley list:
Cottage. C16 with later hip bay. Timber-frame with painted wattle and daub and brick infill, thatched roof. 1½ storey, 2 bay, with C17 hip bay to R and C18 brick hip bay to L. Door to R of centre. In each bay C20 2-light casement, with C20 single light at LH of L bay and in R hip bay. Over each bay 2-light casement in eyebrow dormer. Roof has ridge piece and is swept down each end. Central ridge stack.
This abbreviated jargon means that the original building, from the late 1500's, consisted of only the central part and it was originally probably one big "hall", with possibly some storage above reached by a ladder. The fire was probably in the centre of the floor and there was no chimney. The smoke escaped through a louvre in the gable end. We know this because the timbers in the roof are blacked by smoke (fig 1) and a fragment of this wooden grill survives in the roof (fig 2).
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Fig 1: The smoke blacked roof timbers on the left of the
photograph and the newer clean timbers of the extension on the right,
built after the chimney was inserted. |
Fig 2: The surviving fragment of the louvre in the
original end wall which was intended to let the smoke out. |
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Another surviving feature of the early form of the house is shown in fig 3. The wooden grill supported one of the original windows, possibly the only one. It is level with what is now the bedroom floor and clearly belongs to the time before the floor was inserted. It was probably designed to light the "high status" end of the hall. |
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Fig 3: An original window |
In the early 1600's one of the new-fangled chimneys was inserted into the centre of the hall. This obviously reduced the smoke level but it also meant that it was possible to support a beam going along the length of the house in the middle which could support transverse beams and an upper floor in each half.
Fig 4 shows the rather inelegant way that the transverse beams were fixed onto the older timber frame and fig 5 shows some decorative moulding at the end of the longitudinal beam which fixes the approximate date of these changes.
Judging by the appearance of the beams the extension at the end of the cottage at the left hand end of the picture was probably added at the same time.
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Fig 4: Showing how the tranverse beams supporting the
upper floor have been fitted in to the framework. |
Fig 5: Decoration on one end of one of the longitudinal
beams; the styles changed rapidly and can be used for dating. |
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The floor inserted at this time is exposed in one of the bedrooms and is shown in fig 6. The floor survives in the other upstairs rooms but is no longer sufficiently level and so has been covered and is not visible. |
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Fig 6 Some of the remaining floorboards in the upper
storey |
Interesting features which tells us something of the minds of the people living in the cottage is the presence of marks (fig 7 and 8) carved in the beam over the fireplace which were intended to discourage witches from coming down the chimney! The technical name for these is 'apotropaic marks' Some more marks are shown in figs 9 and 10.
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Fig 7: Marks carved on the beam above the fireplace to
discourage witches |
Fig 8: Another set of marks on the same beam |
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Fig 9: Some marks on a beam near the door |
Fig 10: Marks on the beam above the second fireplace.
These might be letters but their date and meaning is unknown |
Sometime during the 18th century an extension was built at the other end of the cottage, on the left in the photograph. Since a second staircase was inserted and the cottage was probably divided into two at this time. The two front doors still exist and can be seen in the picture. There are also two back doors.
The building was converted back to a single dwelling sometime about 1950 and was extensively modernised in the 1980's.