Briar Cottage

TL 7031-7131 5/177

WETHERSFIELD HIGH STREET (north side) Briar Cottage

GV II

Wrongly shown on OS map as Park View. House. C17, altered in C20. Timber framed, roughcast rendered, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. 3 bays facing SE, with axial stack at right end, originally external, enclosed by one-bay extension to right, late C17/early C18. C20 external stack at left end. C20 single-storey extension to rear with felted lean-to roof, and further extension at rear right corner with roof of red interlocking tiles. One storey with attics. One C20 splayed bay, 2 C19 casements, and 2 C19/early C20 casements in gabled dormers. C20 door at front of gabled porch. The original building comprises a heated room of 2 bays and an unheated parlour of one bay, with jowled posts and straight rising braces at the corners, trenched inside the studs. The heated room has a chamfered transverse beam with lamb's tongue stops and plain joists of horizontal section. The parlour has chamfered longitudinal joists of horizontal section with lamb's tongue stops. All joists are supported on pegged clamps but appear to be original. Large wood-burning hearth of 0.23 metre brickwork with ogee-headed salt recess in left flank, mantel beam replaced. Some original wattle and daub in rear wall. The right extension has a chamfered axial beam with lamb's tongue stops and plain joists of vertical section. Clasped purlin roof. Some fire damage at right rear corner of original building. An unusual example of a small house of the first half of the C17, with high quality finish, extended soon afterwards. RCHM 5.

Listing NGR: TL7133131381