Woodburn Gardeners' Cottage

Woodburn Gardeners' Cottage

A pair of semi-detached cottages built in 1873 by architect G. G. Hoskins for Theodore Fry and his wife Sophie Pease Fry. The cottages are constructed of rusticated sandstone with ashlar dressings, slate roofs and cast iron finials.

Each cottage contains two rooms per floor (parlour and kitchen on the ground floor, two bedrooms on the first floor) with a separate scullery and pantry to the rear of the ground floor and a separate bathroom to the rear of the first floor. The staircases are positioned against the east wall of the eastern cottage and the west wall of the western cottage.

The main south-facing elevation features two cross gables forming two bays across two storeys, with a dentilled eaves cornice. The roofs are half-hipped with a central valley and are topped with ornate cast iron finials. Each cottage has a tall lateral and an axial ridge chimney stack. Ground and first floor windows are mullioned with two lights, topped with relieving arches of alternating ashlar and rusticated stone. All windows contain two-pane horned sliding sashes. Paired entrance porches at the centre are supported by diagonal buttresses with chevron eaves cornices and hipped roofs. Each porch retains an original boarded wooden door with ornate strap hinges and original door furniture. The rear north-facing elevation has two bays across two storeys, with a single fixed pane window to the ground floor and paired narrow windows with horned two-pane sashes. A modern extension attached to the west end of the eastern cottage is not of special interest.

Interior features include a dog leg staircase with winder fitted with octagonal chamfered balusters and chamfered newel posts with a cupboard below in each cottage. Original gothic hall arches are retained, though that in the western cottage has been modified. Four-panel doors throughout have chamfered mullions and rails; some doors in the western cottage have replacement glazed upper panels. Ground floor rooms have simple cornices and deep skirting boards with original fitted cupboards with chamfered mullions and rails. Ground floor fire surrounds are later additions, though original segmental headed openings are retained behind them; one opening in the former kitchen of the eastern cottage remains in its original state. First floor rooms have simple cornices and deep skirtings. The eastern cottage retains one fitted cupboard, a 19th century cast iron fireplace and a 20th century cast iron fireplace, while the western cottage retains two 19th century cast iron fireplaces.

Each cottage has a walled yard attached to the rear, with a range of outbuildings attached to the inside of the north wall.

The cottages were designed and built by G. G. Hoskins in 1873 for Theodore Fry, who later became Mayor and Member of Parliament of the town (1850–1895), and his Quaker wife Sophie Pease Fry, granddaughter of Edward Pease, the noted woollen manufacturer and promoter of the pioneering Stockton to Darlington Railway. The Fry family lived in Woodburn Mansion, formerly situated on the south side of Coniscliffe Road, also designed by Hoskins but demolished in 1935. The cottages were originally known as Woodburn Gardeners' Cottages and were set within an extensive garden plot. In the late 19th century a room was added to each of the ground floor sculleries to provide a first floor bathroom, and in the early 1980s a narrow two-storey extension was added to the rear of the western cottage.

Gardens and gardening hold an important role in the Quaker tradition, and the construction of the cottages and their smallholding is thought to have been a Quaker philanthropic horticultural project to provide local work. George G. Hoskins was a prominent Darlington architect who designed a number of prestigious buildings in the town and surrounding region and has six listed buildings to his name, including the Grade II* listed Middlesbrough Town Hall. He was elected a fellow of the RIBA in 1870, proposed by J. P. Pritchett, T. Oliver and J. Ross. Hoskins had been clerk to Albert Waterhouse, the renowned architect and Quaker whose building style strongly influenced his work.