Dunsley Bungalow

Dunsley Bungalow is a bungalow built around 1920 by Hertfordshire County Council as part of the Homes Fit for Heroes movement following the First World War. It is timber-framed and weatherboarded in elm, with a half-hipped tile roof and tile-hung gablets. Brick stacks rise through the roof. The building is single storey.

The entrance is roughly central, set back under a porch with posts supported on shaped brackets. The door comprises vertical lower boards beneath nine panes of obscured glazed glass. To the left of the entrance is a vertical six-pane window with similar obscured glass. Further left is a three-light small-paned timber casement with original fittings and scrolled catches. A similar two-light window is positioned to the far right. A small four-light fixed window sits to the right of the entrance. The left-hand gable contains a three-light kitchen window, a timber casement replaced in 1966. The right-hand gable retains a timber casement, though with some replaced ironmongery. The left-hand gable has a door similar to the front door and a single-light window inserted in 1966, probably brought from the front elevation, with an added porch. The rear elevation retains two two-light timber casements with fittings and a small larder window with mesh grill. A two-light timber casement is also present at the rear; these latter windows were probably changed round, reset and repaired in 1966. Cast iron guttering with scroll finials at the angles completes the exterior.

The interior comprises a living room with a brick fireplace featuring moulded lintels and a grate now blocked. Adjacent are a vertically-boarded airing cupboard and store cupboard with cast iron door furniture. A slender picture rail and vertical timber strips subdivide the wall into panels. Two bedrooms are present, one with a small moulded cast iron mantelpiece and grate, the other with a plain painted metal mantelpiece and grate. An unheated study and small closet by the entrance complete the accommodation. Doors throughout are vertically boarded with cast iron latches of two designs. The kitchen and bathroom area were reordered in the 1960s. Lath and plaster ceilings survive beneath later insulation. The plan conforms to contemporary standards, being south-facing to provide light and airy spaces, with the living room lit from two aspects and good kitchen, bathroom and washing facilities.

The plot retains some cast iron boundary posts and wires, with those to the north from the adjacent plot dating to around 1930. A cartshed and piggery, the subject of a separate entry, are common to many small holdings of this date.

The bungalow is a rare surviving example from the Homes Fit for Heroes movement, part of the wider movement of early 20th-century public housing in which Hertfordshire played an important role. It occupies a two-acre plot taken from Dunsley Farm, which was purchased from the Rothschild estate in 1919 by the County Council. The property was allocated to Mr A Jeacock, a market gardener and First World War veteran, under the Land Settlement (Facilities) Act 1919, which enabled local authorities to provide smallholdings to veterans. It is well documented as one of the first plots acquired by the County Council after the war. Plans for the house do not survive, but it is similar to an example from Tiptree, Essex, by Kenneth M Cross, illustrated in Houses, Cottages and Bungalows, edited by Philip Chatterton, 1926. Plans survive for the cart shed and piggery by the County Land Agent's Office (1920), specified for Mr Jeacock. The final build differs in reverse from the drawings. Plans dated 1966 from the County Land Agents document the reordering of the kitchen and bathroom, though the final build differs slightly from the drawings. Comparable smallholdings remain at Baldock and Kings Langley, but none are as complete.

The bungalow sits on a two-acre smallholding, still intact and managed in the original manner, with an orchard and livestock. It is the only surviving managed smallholding of this period in the county and, apart from its social and historical implications, has wide ecological diversity.