Magnolia Cottage Stowford Cottage

A pair of semi-detached cottages, dated 1865 and designed by William Nesfield. The cottages are built of red English garden wall bond brick with tile hanging to the first floor and a plain tile roof. They are two storeys in height. The front features a recessed centre with a lean-to porch, incorporating two lateral pointed arches leading to the front doors. Above these arches are two glazed central arches with panes of bulls-eye glass. Above this are jointed three-light hipped dormer windows with fishscale tiling to their apexes, featuring wooden mullions with a brick king mullion at the centre. Projecting wings flank the central section, each with two two-light casement windows on the ground floor. The first floors are jettied and have pargetted cement to the coving. The first-floor windows are oriels, also with pargetted cement coving and a date stone reading A.D. 1865. These oriel windows have hipped roofs, and the gable ends against which they are set are hung with fishscale tiles. The main roof is hipped, with metal vanes topped with lead pendants at the corners and gable ends. A substantial chimney stack with four flues and ribbed brickwork runs along the centre of the ridge, while further lateral stacks, flush with the sides of the houses, each feature three flues. Much of the tile hanging and roofing has been replaced in recent times. The cottages are notable as an early example of Nesfield and Shaw’s Old English style, demonstrating Nesfield’s characteristic bulkiness and a fluent combination of diverse architectural elements. They are also significant as an early example of what would become the common semi-detached house design, prefiguring many features that would later be seen in early 20th-century developments.