Bircham Cottages

This is a house, originally built as a semi-detached pair of cottages, constructed between 1846 and 1847 for the Chartist Co-operative Land Company. It is built of stuccoed brick with a Welsh slate roof. The house has a two-storey, pedimented central block, with slightly recessed one-storey wings; the wing on the left is raised, creating a 1:2:1 arrangement, which is unusual among the settlements built by the Chartist movement. The windows are modern casements. A plinth is visible, and a rebated strip separates the central bays. The pediment features a rectangular panel with sides extended downwards, a distinctive feature used throughout O'Connorville. The building has bargeboards. An entrance is located in the right wing, contained within a porch on the gable end, with a pedimental surround. The left wing has a gabled front, with a ground floor canted bay addition, a sash window on the first floor, and dentilled brick eaves. A 20th-century entrance porch is on the rear left side. The original axial ridge stack remains, with another stack located at the rear of the right wing. The interior has not been inspected. This is one of the best-preserved examples of houses from O'Connorville, a settlement founded by Feargus O'Connor, a Chartist leader, as part of his Land Plan, which followed Chartism and foreshadowed the Garden City movement. Initially, a school and 35 cottages were constructed, each set within 2 to 4 acres of land.