43-57, BLANCH CROFT

A terrace of eight cottages, built in 1795 and later altered, located in the parish of Melbourne. The cottages were constructed for the Sick Club. They are built of red brick with shallow-pitched slate roofs, brick gable and ridge stacks, and dentilated eaves. The cottages are arranged in three groups of two, stepping downwards from numbers 55 and 57 at the south end. The two southernmost cottages (55 and 57) each have a 20th-century glazed door to the north side, alongside a three-light window with 20th-century casements. Above this are two similar windows. Cottages 53 and 51 have similar doors to the south side, alongside two-light windows with 20th-century casements. Above number 53 are two further two-light windows, and above number 51 are two three-light windows, all with 20th-century casements. Further north is a semi-circular headed blocked doorcase, now filled with a small, paned fixed window and a smaller semi-circular headed niche above containing a slate plaque inscribed ‘Sick Club Buildings No VIII. Erected MDCCXCV’. Cottages 49 and 47 have three-light casement windows to the north side of a 20th-century door, with matching three-light windows above each floor. Numbers 43 and 45 have been combined into one house and feature two-light windows to the north side of a 20th-century glazed door, with two-light 20th-century casement windows above each floor. Ground and first floor window openings have segment heads, with the exception of the doorcases to numbers 43, 45, 51, 53, 55, and 57. To the rear of each cottage is a small workshop, with a ground floor of stone rubble and a brick upper storey, featuring a two-light horizontal sliding sash window, originally a four-light window.