7 & 9 Gerrard Street

7 & 9 Gerrard Street

This is a house, formerly two separate cottages, built in the 17th century. It was refronted in brick and altered in the late 19th century and again in the 20th century.

The building is timber-framed, sitting on a plinth of large sandstone blocks with brick infill. The front elevation and rear outshut are built in brick, with plain clay tile roofs and slate on the front slope.

The house is orientated north-west to south-east and is attached to the neighbouring 11 Gerrard Street at the south-eastern end. It consists of two wide bays of single depth with a rear outshut.

The principal elevation facing Gerrard Street is rendered and incised to resemble ashlar. It is two storeys high. Originally a matching pair of cottages, each bay has a metal casement window with stone cills on both floors. The right bay has an entrance doorway reached by two stone steps, with a late 19th-century door. The render shows evidence of a corresponding 19th-century entrance in the left bay, which has since been blocked. The western return displays a high stone plinth above which the former internal partition between this building and now-demolished neighbouring cottages is exposed. The external faces of the tie beam and other timbers show decay and have been covered with nailed-on oak floorboards stained to match the originals. The timber frame is built on a high stone plinth, partly replaced in brick to the left. The ground floor has small square framing, while the first floor has less regular framing including jowled posts and a curved brace. The tie beam and principal rafters of the end truss are visible. The infill is rendered and painted. The chimney stacks have been removed.

To the rear is a deep catslide roof which changes pitch slightly as it slopes down over the outshut. Two gabled dormers, probably from the late 18th or 19th century, are set in the rear slope. The outshut is built in brick and has timber windows, a door, and a rooflight to the left.

The ground floor is divided into two rooms within the timber-framed range. A wide inglenook fireplace of large sandstone blocks sits at either end under chamfered timber bressumers, both now converted to storage. A timber winder stair runs to the side of the fireplaces, behind later doors. Both staircases are timber replacements, probably from the late 19th or early 20th century. The rooms are divided by a partition consisting of a high sandstone plinth with square framing above, measuring two panels by two to the front section and one by two to the rear. They are built under a large cross beam which is chamfered and runs the depth of the main range. The wall plates are of similar size scantling and also chamfered. The rear wall has regular square framing set on a sandstone plinth of the same height. The right-hand bay has no ceiling beam, but large joists run axially across the room, partly truncated by a trimmer at the right-hand side, creating evidence of an earlier opening to the upper floor. The left-hand bay has an axial ceiling beam, roughly chamfered and tenoned into the cross-beam with similar scantling. The joists run at right angles to those in the right-hand bay and show signs of re-use; they have been turned on edge and rebated to the lower edge, suggesting they may previously have supported ceiling boards.

A stone-built cellar with a vaulted stone ceiling runs under the front of the building. Stone winder steps running under the stair to the upper floor provide access from either end. The steps to the left bay have been blocked and the space converted to a cupboard. The cellar steps have been repaired with a mixture of red brick and engineering brick. The roof has been slightly modified to create two small lights at pavement level at the time of refronting. The rear outshut has a central timber-framed partition and a further partition creating a bathroom at the northern end. The doors are 19th-century plank and batten examples. All other finishes are of 20th-century date.

On the first floor, the two bays are divided by a closed mid-truss. The rising wall-posts are jowled and meet the queen-post truss, formed from tie beam, paired principal rafters, collar, queen struts and angled ridge-piece, with curved windbraces to the trenched purlins, all pegged. The wall framing includes an angled brace running between the wall post and tie beam, with the whole pattern of framing replicated in the end walls. The first floor of the right bay is a single room; that to the left is divided into two rooms running axially. There is no doorway between the two bays on the upper floor; each is reached by its own stair. The rooms are ceiled above collar level. The loft space shows that the ridge piece of the original front roof slope and the common rafters remain in place, but a late 19th-century softwood structure has been created above these common rafters to carry the front slope up above the height of the 19th-century windows in the rebuilt front wall.