King'S Cottage, Street Farm And Lower Somersham Post Office

King’s Cottage, Street Farm and Lower Somersham Post Office comprises three houses, one of which includes the post office. The building likely began as a three-cell farmhouse in the 15th or early 16th century, and was later used as The King's Head Inn until the early 20th century. It is a complex structure, developed in four main phases, all by the mid-17th century.

The central range likely dates to the early 16th century or earlier, with substantial alterations in the mid-19th century, and now comprises the main part of Street Farmhouse. It originally had a hall with a service cell, and is two storeys high with four windows. The building is timber-framed, with a painted red brick facade from the 19th century. It has a plain tiled roof with an axial chimney built of red brick, also from the 17th century. The windows are 19th-century casements with segmental heads and small panes, and the front entrance is a 19th-century four-panelled door with a lean-to canopy supported by brackets. Internally, the hall retains heavy exposed first-floor joists, a cross-passage, and early 19th-century features such as bar seating and a corner cupboard. The front wall was raised and the roof was partly rebuilt in the 19th century.

A dairy/bakehouse range, originally detached and now the Post Office, projects to the right. This section is from the 16th century, two stories high, and has three cells. It is timber-framed and roughcast, with a plain tiled roof (one side concrete tiled) and an axial chimney of red brick dating back to the 17th century. It features various 19th-century casements and sash windows, with good, unmoulded framing visible internally. A small, two-story wing from the 17th or 18th century was added to the rear right, alongside single-storey red brick extensions from the 19th and late 20th centuries.

A short, set-forward cross-wing, now part of King’s Cottage, was added to the left-hand end in the mid-16th century. It is two stories high and timber-framed with roughcast. The gable is jettied at both the first floor and the gable foot, incorporating moulded fascia bressumers at each level. Two knees project from the first floor, one rising from a carved shaft. The rear gable and chimney are a 17th or early 18th-century alteration in red brick. A two-story, late 20th-century extension on the left is not of special interest.

Finally, a gabled cross-wing, now part of Street Farmhouse, likely served a service function and was inserted in the 17th century. It is two stories high, timber-framed and plastered, with a plain tiled roof and an axial chimney of red brick dating to the 17th century.