15 And 17, High Street

Pair of Late-Georgian Cottages

15 and 17 High Street are a pair of late-Georgian cottages of timber-frame construction on a brick plinth, rendered externally with roughcast and finished internally with lath and plaster. The timber is hand-sawn elm. The dividing wall between the two properties is brick. The roof is hipped and M-shaped, with hand-made tiles fixed by wooden pins to the front and pantiles to the rear. The two central shared brick stacks have minimal cornice detail and each carries four chimney pots.

The Plan

The cottages follow a double-pile plan with a rear brick cross wing, which appears to be a raising of an earlier single-storey outshut. A lean-to conservatory has been added to the side of the cross wing of each property.

Exterior

Each cottage has a single range of sash windows to the front. The ground floor windows are 16-pane and un-horned; the first floor left is a later 4-pane horned sash, whilst the right is a 12-pane horned sash. The rear windows show more alteration, though some sashes have been retained. Entrance doorways are positioned to each side, each with a bracketed shallow-gabled hood, a divided overlight (original to number 17, later glazed to number 15), and a 6-panelled door.

Interior

The original plan survives downstairs, with a side hall and stairs rising opposite the door—the arrangement being identical in each cottage. The back room in both instances has been enlarged by taking in part of the entrance hall, which has consequently been halved in width. The stairs are steep with stick balusters and a small landing balustrade, all retained. Original wide floorboards, individually fitted by notching over joists, remain throughout. Each main room originally had a fireplace; all but one (in the back room of No. 17) survive. The fireplace in the front parlour of No. 17 has been replaced with a modern surround. The remaining fireplaces are plain with restrained mouldings; all but one are boarded up.

The front parlours of both cottages reveal a modestly higher social status than other rooms: they have 6-panelled doors (compared to shallow 4-panelled doors elsewhere), and in both instances feature a small reeded plaster cornice with corner paterae. No. 15 additionally has a dado rail and a moulded fireplace with hints of classical detail. The rear rooms feature arched alcoves either side of the fireplace, which are of recent construction, as are alcoves in the hallway and back rooms.

Upstairs, a partially glazed partition has been erected across the landing in both houses, halving its size but creating additional bedroom space. In No. 17 this additional space has been added to the back bedroom. In No. 15 the back bedroom gains space from the landing but also loses some to form a lobby providing communal access to a bathroom in the rear wing. In No. 17 the bathroom is a bedroom accessible only through the back bedroom.

Historical Context

Southgate was originally a woodland hamlet within coppice woods outside Enfield Chase (the name referring to the south entrance to the Chase) in the parish of Edmonton. Enfield Chase was enclosed in 1777, and High Street Southgate—formerly South Street—a separate hamlet, became an area of small businesses and services. Records from this period document wheelwrights, hurdlemakers, bakers, butchers, cartwrights, dairymen, blacksmiths, farriers, timber yard owners, and plant nursery proprietors operating here.

Numbers 15 and 17 themselves became established as a builder's premises in 1910 and were described in 1987 as 'One of Southgate's respected and old established family concerns, H Miller and Sons, Plumbers and Decorators', reflecting the early 19th-century character of the area, which is now overwhelmingly suburban.

Adjacent properties include a pair of cottages of similar date (numbers 5 and 7). Number 5 appears in an early photograph as a schoolhouse but has been substantially rebuilt. Number 7 retains more original fabric and features Gothick intersecting glazing. All these cottages retain their front gardens bounded by picket fences.

Detailed investigation of the original enclosure map of 1801 reveals evidence of development on this site in the form of five houses, although not in their present location or form.

These cottages are significant as late-Georgian examples of timber-framed construction, a late survival of such building practice. They retain internal decorative detail that illustrates their particular social context and, despite some internal alterations, preserve their essential plan form. The cottages demonstrate the development of Southgate from a small hamlet into an area of small businesses and services, reflecting the early 19th-century character of an area now overwhelmingly suburban.