Rose Cottage

TL 64 SE STEEPLE BUMPSTEAD CHAPEL STREET 2/62 No. 17 (Rose Cottage)

GV II

Crosswing, late C16, altered in C19, now a cottage. Timber framed, plastered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 2 bays aligned NW-SE, forming the parlour/solar crosswing of a hall house which formerly extended to the SW. C19 chimney stack at NW end and single-storey extension with slate roof and internal chimney stack beyond, C19. 2 storeys. NE elevation, half-glazed door and 3-window range of double-hung sashes of 4 lights, late C19. Roof hipped at NW end. The interior has jowled posts, exposed close studding on the upper floor with curved 'Suffolk' bracing trenched inside, plain-chamfered axial and transverse beams with lamb's tongue stops, unchamfered joists of horizontal section. In the upper SE wall there are two blocked original windows, each with a single hollow-moulded mullion and small diamond mortices for the stiffening bars of early glazed windows of 2 leaded panels. In the upper NW wall there is a blocked central unglazed window with 2 diamond mullions in situ, one jamb altered. The roof is of clasped purlin construction with curved wind- braces, the hipped NW bay altered in softwood. The survival of original glazed and unglazed windows in the same crosswing is of particular interest. It indicates that the house faced SE, and that this crosswing was built soon after the expansion of the glass industry in England in the 1570s, when glass was still used in small areas at the front and not at the back, of the best part of the house. All other features are consistent with this dating.

Listing NGR: TL6804441182