Cannons Cottages

Cannons Cottages, Stondon Massey

A house now divided into two cottages, originally dating from around 1600 with significant alterations in the early 19th century and further changes in the 20th century. The building is timber-framed with rough cast rendering and brick additions, also rough cast rendered, beneath a peg-tiled roof. The plan is rectangular with a ground floor out-shut to the north and a flat-roofed addition behind it to the east. A narrow two-storey extension to the south, set back to the rear, has a hipped roof with flat 20th-century tiles. In front of this extension, a flat-roofed 20th-century addition extends forward and around the east front, providing an outer door porch for No. 2. A two-storey lean-to sits at the rear of No. 1.

The principal chimney stack is centrally positioned but set well back behind the roof apex, rebuilt in the 19th century using 17th-century bricks at its base. Minor 19th-century stacks are located on the north end gable and at the south end of the rear lean-to.

The east front elevation presents a three-bay block. The ground floor has two windows flanking a central front door with a flat hood and shaped console brackets; the door case features a reeded architrave. The door is a six-panel example with the lower four panels projecting slightly and the upper two glazed. The first floor displays three sash windows with glazing bars in a 4x4 pane pattern and moulded architraves. The north out-shut and south front extension each feature a 20th-century sash window with glazing bars and 4x4 panes; the south extension also has a 20th-century framed door with three carved panels. The first floor of the south gable end and the adjacent west elevation of the rear extension have 19th-century sash windows with 3x4 panes. The rear out-shut to No. 1 contains a 19th-century three-light casement, a 19th-century boarded door in a contemporary surround, another 19th-century two-light casement, and a 20th-century small single-light casement. The rear of No. 2 is entirely 20th-century work, comprising one two-light casement with glazing bars in a 3x4 pane pattern and one plain two-light window, with a door between them featuring glazing bars in a 3x3 pane pattern above two panels, and a single two-light casement on the first floor. The north end elevation of No. 1 is entirely 20th-century, with a fully glazed lean-to door featuring glazing bars in a 2x5 pane pattern, two top-opening windows with glazing bars and 4x4 panes, and a pantiled roof. The rear flat-roofed extension has two top-opening casement windows.

Internally, the central stack features massive back-to-back fireplaces, now reduced, with the north side crudely cut back to accommodate a central staircase rising from the back of the house. The south side retains a modest 20th-century fireplace. The main house structure consists of one bay on either side of the stacks, with heavy framing to the rear and primary bracing at the north end. At the south end wall, the top plate, corner jowled storey post, and tie-beam survive. A prick post survives in the south gable. The roof over the south end retains original trapped side purlin and curved wind brace construction. The front and north end wall feature early 19th-century timber-framing with mechanically sawn timber and slender members with primary bracing.

The building was originally constructed around 1600 as a two-celled, symmetrical house with a central chimney and back-to-back fireplaces, accessed by a lobby entrance leading to a stair in front of the stack—an arrangement that, while unusual in contemporary English practice (the conventional position being at the back of the stack), became the norm in colonial houses in America. Early 19th-century alterations involved rebuilding the front and north ends, constructing a new central corridor and stair with the necessary reduction of the stack, and adding new out-shuts and extensions. The main stack was rebuilt and two minor stacks were added at this time.