Braydeston Cottage

Braydeston Cottage

Braydeston Cottage is a timber-framed house probably originating in the first half of the 17th century, re-fronted in the 18th century and extended in the 19th century.

The building is constructed with a timber frame and rebuilt walls of hand-made red brick laid in a variation of Flemish bond, under a thatched roof. The rear lean-to extensions are of red brick, both hand-made and machine-made, clad with pantiles. Red brick chimney stacks rise from the structure.

The building is set back from The Street in a garden plot, with a single-pile, rectangular plan and a rear lean-to running its full length. It presents four window bays and one and a half storeys under a steeply pitched, thatched roof with a scalloped ridge and parapets at the gable ends. Three chimney stacks with tall pots rise through the ridge at both gable ends and between the first and second bays (originally the end wall).

The south-facing façade has irregularly spaced fenestration. The first bay, added in the 19th century, contains 20th-century double-leaf French windows, followed by tripartite timber casement windows with leaded lights and segmental heads under gauged brick arches. Between the windows stands a six-panelled front door with two glazed upper panels, housed in an early 19th-century neoclassical doorcase with reeded jambs and corner roundels, all under a later open-sided porch with wavy bargeboards. The upper floor is lit by elongated dormer windows rising above the eaves with thatched roofs and applied timbering in the gable heads. The tripartite casement windows are similar to those below but possibly date to the turn of the 20th century.

The west gable end features tumbled brickwork, a small 20th-century timber window at the upper level, and a coal store. The east gable end has been rendered and painted, and is lit by a small window at the upper level. At the rear, the lean-to shows three distinct phases: the central part is constructed of older brick; to the left, the brickwork is later though of 19th-century date; and the section to the right is under a shallower-pitch roof and is of 20th-century brick. The timber doors and windows are also 20th-century in date.

Interior

The interior retains some 18th-century joinery in stripped pine, including two-panelled doors in moulded door-frames and folding shutters in the two reception rooms. The windows are complete with their original fittings. On either side of the entrance hall is a reception room, with a further room in the 19th-century extension to the west. Two main areas of exposed timber framing are visible.

Behind the staircase in the central part of the lean-to, the passageway has wall frames consisting of posts with primary down bracing. In the east room (to the right of the entrance hall), the west wall has posts and primary down bracing, all scored for the application of plaster, and the rear north wall also has down bracing. The bridging beam in this room is hollow and so probably not original, with joists painted black. The brick inglenook has been partially rebuilt and has a weathered bressumer with a chamfered inner edge. Located directly to the north of the inglenook is a straight flight with winders at the bottom.

In the entrance hall an elegant open well Georgian staircase with winders is fitted into a small area at the furthest end. It is of stripped pine with an open string and carved tread ends, a steeply ramped moulded handrail which terminates with a scroll above a curtail step, one or two turned balusters per tread, and a delicate drop finial. The soffit is panelled and the dado on the staircase wall follows the line of the handrail.

The west room (to the left of the entrance hall) has an ovolo moulded bridging beam with moulded stops and black-painted joists. The Georgian style fireplace in stripped pine has a Victorian style cast-iron inset with tiled cheeks, flanked by fitted 18th-century round-arched display cabinets. The door and glazed panels of the cabinet on the right appear to have been replaced; the cabinet on the left has been knocked through to create access to the 19th-century extension, although the round-arched frame is intact. In the end bay there is a 19th-century style fireplace and a 20th-century metal spiral stair.

On the upper floor in the east room (to the right of the landing), the wall plate is exposed along the rear north wall and a substantial, though crooked, tie beam is in front of the wide tapering brick chimney-breast. The position of the tie beam indicates the original low height of the roof space.

The room to the left of the landing contains a reeded fireplace surround with a cast-iron inset by the designer and architect Thomas Jeckyll, who became one of the leading figures in the Aesthetic Movement. The inset is in his characteristic geometric style with circular motifs and was made by Barnards Iron Founders of Norwich. The tiles either side have been removed.

The principal rafter roof is constructed of straight-edged machine-sawn timbers of narrow scantling. The lean-to, other than the area of timber framing, has modern kitchen and bathroom fittings.