116-156 Woodfield Cottages, outhouses and pumps

A development of 41 workers cottages, arranged in three parallel terraces together with contemporary paired outhouses, pumps and lamp standards.The terraces were built by E H Bentall, manufacturer of agricultural machinery, for his workforce and completed in 1873.

MATERIALS: built of mass concrete with a render coating, with slate roof coverings and red brick ridge chimneys. The small paired outbuildings are similarly detailed.

PLAN: arranged in three south-facing terraces, with their outbuildings located at the top of the gardens, facing the cottage frontages. The original interior layout of each cottage provided four rooms, two on each side of a wide central passage, with a smaller room between the two rear rooms at the end of the passage. In many of the cottages, this original plan form has now been modified.

EXTERIORS: each cottage is of two bays with an entrance doorway with single window openings to either side. The front door is the only access to the cottage interior, there being no door opening to the rear wall. The original window frames were six-over-six pane sashes to both front and rear walls, the rear wall with a small opening between the larger flanking windows. Most of the cottages now have replacement door and window components of varied design and materials. There are a number of added porches and a smaller number of roof dormer extensions, again of varied design, together with the insertion of numerous roof lights within the roof slopes. The outbuildings facing the cottages are paired single-bay units with a pitched roof, each with a single door opening with a flanking opening and a rear wall chimney. Some have undergone similarly- varied alteration as the cottages, but fewer have replacement door and window components. Some outbuildings have lost their chimneys.

INTERIORS: the interiors of the cottages appear to have undergone extensive and varied forms of alteration, and were not inspected at the time of listing in September 1971.   An inspection made of one of the cottages indicated that the dimensions and detailing of the original chimney stacks, including the render coating and chamfered corners survive within the attic created by the later addition of pitched roofs, and that original plan form details including room dimensions and hearth positions remained largely undisturbed, although now with C20 and C21 fixtures and fittings.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: contemporary iron water pumps and basins are retained to the front of numbers 146 and 154.