Numbers 30 and 31, College Lane

Pair of cottages. Early C19 with medieval origins. Gault brick with slate roof and red brick central ridge stack. Rear wall has stone ashlar blocks in lower part and a stone pointed-arched blocked doorway. 2 storeys and cellars. Front has a 2-window range at first floor of an 8/8 unhorned original sash to left and a renewed casement to right. Ground floor has 2 8/8 unhorned original sashes. Fine gauged brick lintels on both floors. Cellar windows partly visible. 6-panel door (30) to left under fanlight with round arched head. Further 6-panel door (31) to right with boarded overlight leads to small yard and rear door. To far right an extension with flint and brick mixed to ground floor and brick over. 6/6 unhorned sash to first floor and partly boarded sash and 4-panel door below. Right end of cottages is stuccoed and has a 2-light casement over a door and window. Rear of cottages is a red brick wall which has a 6/6 sash and a 2-light casement over. This wall has a plinth running full length with a pointed arched doorway, now blocked, in line with the front door of No.30 and large blocks of ashlar in plinth and a few elsewhere on the lower part of the wall. The rear right corner of No.31 appears also to mark the original corner of the plinth. In the wall above the doorway at the other end is a stone kneeler for the coped gable end of an earlier building. INTERIOR. The little altered interior retains both narrow stairs, each with a run of stick balustrading at the landing which ends in a turned newel. Mostly 4-panel doors and original architraves. Small early C19 fire surround in one room. HISTORY. Warren's plan of Bury (1st edition 1747) shows a chantry on the corner of College Lane and Whiting Street and in the party wall of No.30 with the C15 No.63 Whiting Street(q.v., with which Nos.30-31 form a group) was discovered in the 1960's a 3-light Norman window with 2 column mullions, cushion capitals and moulded bases. This pair of cottages is not only a little altered pair of cottages of the period but the survival of the ashlar blocks, plinth and archway in the back wall is not only significant in itself but also suggests that indeed more may survive from earlier periods as well.