1-9, Cobcar Lane

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 26/10/2020

SE30SE 2/4

HOYLAND NETHER Elsecar COBCAR LANE (north side), Nos 1 to 9 (odd)

23.4.74

GV II Planned terrace. Mid-C19 for the Fitzwilliam estate with C20 additions to the rear.

MATERIALS: coursed, dressed sandstone, Welsh slate roof.

EXTERIOR: a two-storey terrace of five houses that has a nearly symmetrical front elevation. The central house is pedimented and breaks slightly forward. It has its door to the right of its ground-floor window, with two windows above. The flanking pairs of houses have their front doors to the far side of their ground-floor window, with just a single window above. The doors are boarded and each has an overlight with glazing bars forming a saltire cross. Windows have 16 panes, being vertical sliding sashes. Door and window openings have segmental-arched lintels tooled to imitate voussoirs, ground-floor windows also having sunken aprons. There is a band immediately below the first-floor cills. The eaves band has stone gutter brackets that continue beneath the coping to the central pediment, this having a glazed oculus. The gables have ashlar copings supported by heavy kneelers. The ridge features four stone-built stacks.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT: from the late C18, Elsecar was the industrial village of the Earls Fitzwilliam, whose seat of Wentworth Woodhouse lies nearby. At Elsecar they invested in coal mining and iron working, erecting industrial buildings along with good quality workers’ housing and a range of other urban facilities including a church and school, all within what had been an agricultural landscape. The survival of many of these buildings makes Elsecar an important and significant place, telling the story of three centuries of coal mining, Christian paternalism, and industrial boom and decline. The terrace of five houses, 1-9 Cobcar Lane, along with the adjacent and very similarly designed Cobcar Terrace were built after the 1849-1850 survey for the 1:10560 Ordnance Survey map, probably for the fifth Earl Fitzwilliam (1786-1857) who also commissioned similarly designed workers’ housing on Fitzwilliam Street. Workers’ housing provided by the Fitzwilliam Estate was regarded as being of a superior quality, for instance they were built with walled yards to both front and rear to provide private outdoor space in addition to the separate allotment garden that was assigned to each cottage.

Listing NGR: SE3883200423