82 Star Road, Caversham, Reading

This is a cottage dating from about 1600, with alterations and extensions added in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The cottage is built with an oak frame and brick infill. The brick infill replaced wattle and daub in the right-hand bay, although wattle and daub may remain in the left-hand bay. The roof is tiled with clay.

The original 17th-century part of the cottage is a one-and-a-half-storey front range, comprising two bays of roughly equal width, each containing two rooms on each floor, separated by the staircase. A single-storey extension from the 19th century is set back and at a right angle to the right-hand bay, containing a kitchen and an external privy. A modern, flat-roofed extension behind the left-hand bay is not included in the listing.

The front range retains significant elements of its original timber frame, which was previously hidden beneath a thick layer of cement render that is currently being removed. When the render was removed from the left-hand end wall, it revealed square-framed panels on a flint and chalk plinth, along with a modern brick stack. Partial render removal on the right-hand end wall has exposed sections of the frame, including a corner post with the remnant of a base cruck. All windows, dormers and the front door are modern.

Inside the front range, more of the timber structure is visible, including jowled corner posts with visible remnants of crucks, framing to the side and rear walls, and at first floor level, wall plates showing evidence of a raised roof line. The ceiling structure in the right-hand bay features a heavy stop-chamfered spine beam with run-out stops, which supports pairs of joists. In the rear wall, there are remains of an 18th-century brick hearth with a truncated timber bressumer and a bread oven, into which a smaller brick fireplace has been inserted. The staircase rises laterally between the two bays, within an enclosure created by stud partitions infilled with face-set brickwork on the ground floor. The central tie-beam has been cut to provide a doorway at the top of the staircase; the carefully altered door has raised and fielded panels and H-L hinges. One upstairs room has a late 19th-century cast-iron fireplace surround. The roof timbers in the attic space are late 19th-century replacements made of sawn softwood.