The Old Cottage

The Old Cottage

This is a timber-framed house on the south side of Swan Street in Kelvedon, originally built in the 15th century and substantially altered around 1600 and again in the early 19th century. It is a grade II listed building.

The structure consists of timber framing, plastered with some exposed framing visible, with a facade of painted brick in Flemish bond and a roof of handmade red plain tiles. The building presents three bays facing north-east with a 16th-century internal axial stack positioned at the left end. A 19th-century rear wing forms a T-plan with the main structure, and there are single-storey lean-to extensions with slate roofs in both rear angles. A small single-storey lean-to extension with a hipped slate roof projects from the right end.

The facade is two storeys high. The ground floor has two early 19th-century sash windows of twelve lights each. The first floor has two early 19th-century sash windows with 3 + 6 lights. A six-panel door with four panels glazed is positioned centrally, all apertures having flat arches of gauged brick. Three truncated octagonal chimney shafts, each with a roll moulding at its base, rise from the roof line. The right return reveals an exposed roof collar. The left return displays exposed timber framing from a former cross-wing, now largely demolished, including jowled posts, a central post with mortices for a beam and brace, studding on the upper storey, and an incomplete fireplace below.

The interior comprises two bays and a short bay at the left end, with a partition wall between the two right bays featuring display bracing trenched into the studs. The entire front was originally jettied, now underbuilt, with two plain jetty brackets at the right end. In the jetty plate are mortices for diamond mullions of unusually large section and grooves for sliding shutters.

The transverse beam on the right side of the right bay is chamfered with lamb's tongue stops, lacking mortices for studding, indicating the building formerly extended further. This beam is an insertion of around 1600, though the chamfered axial beam scribed into it is part of the original structure, with a solid brace approximately 0.15 metre wide at its left end. On the upper storey this bay has a groove for a sliding shutter in the rear wallplate and two longitudinal ovolo-moulded ceiling beams with lamb's tongue stops, also inserted around 1600. The lower posts between the other two bays have been replaced by brick piers. An unusually large chamfered binding beam is supported on these piers, with chamfered axial bridging beams on each side featuring step stops. Plain joists of horizontal section are jointed to the bridging beams with central tenons and housed soffits. The structure is slightly angled at the binding beam, creating a parallelogram plan to the right. Original rebated hardwood floorboards survive. The jowled posts retain two braces to the tiebeams approximately 0.12 metre wide at the front, though these are missing at the rear. The two left roof trusses were originally open. Both storeys have exceptional heights.

The stack contains a wood-burning hearth on the ground floor with a replaced mantel beam, and on the first floor an inserted hearth of around 1600 with chamfered jambs and a depressed arch, stripped of plaster. Ovolo-moulded axial ceiling beams with lamb's tongue stops, inserted around 1600, are present in both bays. The original roof features collar-rafter construction and shows no sooting. One altered 16th-century battened door with moulded muntins, heavily nailed, remains on the ground floor; the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England recorded three such doors.

Deeds relating to the building dating from 1787 to 1922 are held by the owner.