Louisa Cottages On Corner Of Akeman Street

Louisa Cottages, located at the corner of Akeman Street, are a group of almshouses built in two phases: Nos. 1-5 were constructed in 1893, and Nos. 6-8 in 1901, by William Huckvale for the Rothschild estate. The cottages feature a timber-framed front set on a chamfered red brick sill, with roughcast red brick infill to the exposed frame, while the rear wall is made of red brick. They have steep roofs covered with machine-made red tiles and tall red brick chimneys with pilasters.

The building is a long, nearly symmetrical, two-storey structure in an E plan, facing south. The south front has three projecting gabled jettied wings, each with two-storey jettied and gabled rectangular bay windows that contain three-light leaded mullioned casements. On the wider right-hand side, the set back is jettied and features two minor and one central major gabled two-storey jettied rectangular bay window, with hipped porches at the angles leading to boarded doors, and a gabled open timber porch to the left of the central major bay. The narrower left-hand side has a similar set back with two bay windows and a gabled porch between, along with hipped porches at the angles. The timber framing is convincingly detailed, with curved braces in the projecting parts, and there is a balustraded gallery at the eastern end.