Stores Cottage

LITTLE WALDINGFIELD

922/22/361 THE STREET 09-FEB-78 (Southeast side) Stores Cottage (Formerly listed as: THE STREET The Stores)

II A C17 house, altered and extended, probably in the C19 and C20. Pitt Cottage, a 1980s structure attached to the north-east, has no architectural or historic interest.

MATERIALS Rendered, timber-framed structure on a brick plinth (plinth renewed at the front) with a tile covering to the roof.

PLAN 'L' shaped, with single storey outshot to the south-west and later wing, and C20 conservatory to the rear.

EXTERIOR Stores Cottage has two storeys to the main range and the rear wing, beneath gable roofs. The façade has a six-panel door to the left beneath a projecting flat hood supported on carved brackets. To the right, there are C20 casements in altered openings at ground and first floors. At the south-west elevation, a single storey outshot with pent roof lies to the front of a stepped, brick chimney stack with sloping shoulders, topped by a pair of diagonal shafts, rebuilt at the top. A tie beam is exposed in the north-east gable end. The later rear wing is rendered and has a brick chimney at the junction with the roof of the earliest phase. A C20 glazed conservatory has been added to the wing.

INTERIOR No interior inspection, however, the timber cross-frame of the north-east gable end of Stores Cottage is exposed in the south-west interior wall of the attached Pitt Cottage. On the ground floor, this comprises a mid rail and a wall post. In the attic space, a tie beam and studs are apparent.

HISTORY Little Waldingfield is a small village which, between the C15 and C17, was of local importance in Suffolk's thriving woollen cloth industry as an outpost to the nearby important centre of Lavenham. In the Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1886, Stores Cottage, a C17 timber-framed building, was linked to a two-bay shop attached to its north-east elevation with an additional range at right-angles further to the north. The footprint of the cottage and shop was unchanged in the OS map of 1926. In the mid-C20, the shop was largely destroyed by fire and replaced in the 1980s by Pitt Cottage.

SOURCES Ordnance Survey Maps, 1886, 1926. Babergh District Council. Little Waldingfield Conservation Area Appraisal. 2007.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION Stores Cottage, Little Waldingfield, a vernacular building of the C17, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Architecture: it retains a significant proportion of its original fabric, with notable features including the external chimney stack to the south-west and surviving timber-framing * Group Value: Stores Cottage has group value with many nearby listed buildings in the historic core of the village.