Canary Cottage

Farm cottage, built around 1750.

MATERIALS: red brick walls, thatch roof covering.

PLAN: L-shaped in plan, comprising a rectangular-plan farmhouse, and attached square-plan outbuilding to the east.

EXTERIOR: Canary Cottage is a two-bay one-and-half storey farm cottage, with an attached single-storey outbuilding, and hipped thatched roofs. The roof of the cottage is gabled to the west, where the chimneystack was rebuilt in the late C19 or early C20. The walls are constructed of painted red brick laid in English bond, with a dentilled eaves course. The front (south) elevation has a dormer to the first floor, two-light side-hung casement windows to the ground and first floors, and a timber batten-and-plank door, each within a gauged flat-arched opening. The west elevation has a small window to the north first floor bedroom, and the east elevation has a small window to the under-stair cupboard. The rear (north) elevation has a single top-hung casement window and timber batten-and-plank door. The attached single-storey outbuilding to the east has evidence of a previous door opening on its front elevation (now blocked) and two timber batten-and-plank doors to the rear elevation (the west door being larger than the east). The doors and windows are painted canary yellow throughout, lending the cottage the name ‘Canary Cottage’. The cottage stands approximately 190m north of the Wisbech Road (A47).

INTERIOR: The cottage has two rooms on the ground floor: a sitting room to the front, and a kitchen to the rear. The sitting room has a timber cupboard, mid-C20 tiled fire surround, and timber shelving on the west wall, and a floor of exposed machine-made bricks. The kitchen has a Belfast sink under the window on the north wall, and two timber battened doors to a stair and an under-stair cupboard on the east wall. The winder stair has timber treads and appears to have been renewed in the mid-C20. The first floor has two bedrooms with exposed timber floorboards: the north room being the smallest, and leading to the larger bedroom to the south, which has a dormer window on its south wall. Over the dormer window, a hole in the ceiling provides a view into the thatched dormer, which shows evidence of replacement of timbers and thatch in the mid-C20. The roof structure was not visible. The outbuilding has painted red brick walls, and contains a store room in the west part and a privy in the east part.