Japonica and The Nook

Japonica and The Nook

A pair of semi-detached estate workers' cottages built in the 1850s for Sir Samuel Morton Peto, probably designed by John Thomas.

The cottages are constructed of yellow brick laid in Flemish bond with brick dressings and thatched roofs. They face south-east onto The Street, with Japonica on the left set slightly back from The Nook. Japonica has an adjoining outbuilding to the rear, while The Nook has a detached outbuilding.

The two-storey buildings are designed in a picturesque Tudor vernacular style with half-hipped roofs and painted bargeboards in the form of pierced semicircles. Tall decorative chimney stacks rise through the ridge and eaves, with grouped flues set at angles to the bases and oversailing brick eaves surmounted by circular pots. The upper floors are pebble-dashed and embellished with applied painted timbers to imitate timber framing.

The principal elevation consists of two gabled bays. The left bay (Japonica) is set back and contains a vertical plank door under a porch with a half-hipped thatched roof with decorative bargeboards, supported on square-section painted wooden pillars with chamfered and stopped corners. To the left and above are mullioned and transomed wooden casement windows under segmental brick arches with lattice lead cames in the upper lights. The right bay (The Nook) features a canted bay window on the ground floor and a casement window above, with the entrance on the right return under a simple lean-to porch with a tiled roof supported by square-section painted wooden pillars with chamfered and stopped corners. Above the door is an eyebrow dormer positioned across the eaves. The north-east elevation has a projecting gabled bay with a window on each floor.

The south-west elevation of Japonica is lit on the ground floor by three windows with an eyebrow dormer above, followed by a chimney breast which projects from the wall and rises through the eaves. Fenestration throughout is similar to the principal elevation.

The rear elevation is lit by a 20th-century casement window under a concrete lintel and an eyebrow dormer on the first floor. A projecting gabled bay appears on the right side. A 20th-century brick lean-to extension with a pantile roof has been built in the corner, and a single-storey red brick extension under a pantile-clad hipped roof was added to the gable end in the first half of the 20th century.

Internally, the cottages contain three ground floor rooms and three bedrooms above, with a partition wall erected to create a third room. They feature simple internal treatment including closed well staircases with stick balusters and some four-panel doors. No original fireplaces remain except for one in Japonica, which has been boarded over but may survive; it has a plain timber surround.

The single-storey red brick building to the rear of the cottages has a pantile-clad hipped roof. The south-west end behind Japonica is constructed of red brick whilst the north-west end is of yellow brick. This building has a window with lattice lead cames on the north-west elevation and 20th-century wooden-frame windows on the south-east side, along with two plank and batten doors. Inside, the floor is laid in red brick and there is a stove with a door, serviced by a tall red brick chimney stack.