Cotton'S House

Cotton's House

A timber-framed house dating to around 1600, built for the Cotton family, with late 18th- or early 19th-century alterations. The building stands on a dressed grey sandstone plinth, partly cased in rendered brick lined as ashlar, with the rear refaced or rebuilt in red brick. The roofs are plain tile.

The timber framing displays considerable sophistication. The ground floor features close studding (now obscured) with cusped or serrated tension braces, while the first floor has close studding with a middle rail. The jettied attic is supported on moulded brackets, with close studding to the side and a single tier of square panels to the front, flanked by opposed square corner struts each cut from a single piece of timber. The front gable contains three tiers of small square panels with opposed curved corner struts and curved V-struts in the apex.

The house follows a baffle-entry E-plan arrangement, with three timber-framed bays at right angles to the road and three gabled wings to the north-east. Due to its narrow site, the building stands perpendicular to Shropshire Street, with the entrance front facing right. The structure comprises two storeys and an attic over a basement, with a chamfered plinth. A central brick ridge stack rises prominently, featuring pairs of pointed-arched recesses on each face.

The front elevation to the road displays a two-window arrangement with circa 1800 tripartite sashes minus glazing bars, and small attic glazing bar sashes in the gable. The right-hand return (entrance) front includes a central circa 1800 first-floor horizontal-sliding glazing bar sash and a 20th-century three-light wooden casement. A 19th-century gabled porch with a six-panelled door (top two panels glazed) and moulded architrave marks the entrance. The rear elevation, refaced in brick, features a toothed-brick eaves cornice and verge, a gabled eaves dormer to the right, and a segmental-headed two-light wooden casement in the left gable. A rendered early 19th-century lean-to addition to the right completes the rear composition.

The interior contains an exceptional circa 1680 oak staircase, probably replacing an earlier staircase formerly located in a projection at the rear. It rises two floors with winders, a closed string, barleysugar balusters, a moulded handrail, and square newel posts with moulded caps. Principal ground- and first-floor rooms retain pairs of deep-chamfered spine beams with ogee stops. The right-hand ground-floor front room features a 17th-century grey sandstone ashlar fireplace with chamfered reveals and a carved lintel. The kitchen, in the right-hand ground-floor rear room, contains a large open fireplace with chamfered dressed red sandstone reveals and a chamfered wooden lintel, together with a 17th-century six-panelled door. The left-hand ground-floor front room has a pair of chamfered ceiling beams and a late 17th-century door with two large panels and L-hinges. A small fireplace serves another left-hand room. An early 19th-century back staircase with stick balusters, probably replacing a former principal early 17th-century staircase, provides access upstairs. The cellar contains pairs of large chamfered beams.

Circa 1680 two-panelled doors to the principal bedrooms line the first-floor landing, likely fitted when the main staircase was installed. The right-hand front bedroom features a painted sandstone ashlar fireplace with chamfered reveals and a deep lintel with moulded cornice; the room itself retains a moulded cornice. The right-hand rear bedroom has a painted sandstone ashlar fireplace with chamfered reveals. The left-hand rear bedroom displays chamfered beams and boarded cupboard doors with L-hinges (20th century).

The attic comprises tie-beam and collar trusses with single purlins and straight wind braces. The front attic room includes a dressed red sandstone fireplace with chamfered corbels supporting the lintel and a chamfered wooden surround of a blocked former doorway; the doorway was moved, probably when the late 17th-century staircase was inserted. Various 17th-century boarded and panelled doors and old oak floorboards survive throughout. Much timber framing remains visible internally. The first floor still appears to be jettied beneath its casing, evidenced by moulded bressumer ends in the wall between porch and staircase hall. A cusped corner brace spans the space between the staircase hall and kitchen. The front wall behind the later porch has been removed, though the width of the former doorway can still be traced in mortices on the underside of the first-floor wall plate.

Philip Cotton was granted the land in 1539, formerly owned by Combermere Abbey in Cheshire. By 1672, a Philip Cotton is recorded as owning a house in Market Drayton with 5 hearths, likely the present building. An inventory made after Philip Cotton's death in 1681 survives. It has been suggested that the top floor is a later addition, possibly dating to the mid-17th century, to an earlier circa 1600 house, based on the shallow jetty and different framing type.