37, Market Street

Cottage at 37 Market Street, Swavesey

This is a cottage built in the 18th or early 19th century, constructed of mud or clay on a light timber frame with a clay pantiled roof. The house is now covered in modern render.

The cottage is a rectangular baffle entry house with a central chimney stack, rising to one and a half storeys with a mansard roof. A single storey lean-to extension extends to the rear, creating an L-shaped plan. Tucked into the angle between the lean-to and main cottage is a separate pitched roof single storey building, which butts up to but is not joined to the main cottage.

The front elevation, facing west, has a centrally placed front door flanked by modern casement windows. Above these are dormers with catslide roofs, each containing modern single paned casement windows. The side elevations display visible timber framing and each has two horizontally set weatherboards, which provide additional protection to horizontal timbers concealed by the render. The rear contains a back door, unmoulded four panelled, opening into the lean-to, and a further entrance in the south wall of the single storey extension. This extension has a chimney centrally placed on the roof ridge and a window in the north elevation.

Inside, the front door opens directly onto the central chimney stack, with rooms to the right and left, both heated by the central chimney. The south room contains a large fireplace in the north wall, now fitted with a mid-20th century tiled fireplace and hearth. A plank and batten door in the south west corner gives access to a small winder stair rising to the first floor. This stair leads directly into a bedroom, where a plain balustrade provides a safety barrier. A door in the north wall of this room, west of the chimney stack, leads into the second bedroom. Neither bedroom has a fireplace. Disintegration of wall plaster in the first bedroom reveals the wall battens attached to the rafters. The lean-to is open to the west half of the single storey rear wing, which formed the kitchen. The east half of the rear wing was most recently used as a bathroom.

Swavesey's size and prosperity from the early Middle Ages until the 19th century was due to trade enabled by its proximity to the River Ouse. Until the railway was built, Swavesey functioned as an inland port with docks in the village centre, which were relocated northward closer to the river in the mid-19th century. In 1244, a market charter was granted to Alan la Zouche, lord of Swavesey manor, and Market Street was laid out with a dock at its east end. By 1279 there were 28 burgage plots in the market, but the size and location of No. 37 Market Street, at the east end of the central green, suggest it represents a later encroachment onto the marketplace. The dock in Market Street remained in use until enclosure in 1840, when a new dock was constructed north of the village west of the church, and the old dock became dry. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1887 shows the cottage plan much as it exists today, with a separate rectangular single storey building to the south east, now replaced with a wooden garage of different orientation. Subsequent historic Ordnance Survey maps confirm that the rear wing is a separate building, tucked between the elbow of the L-shaped main house and the lean-to, which is how it survives today.