Laundry Cottage

HECKFIELD

1687/0/10068 LAUNDRY LANE 09-NOV-09 Laundry Cottage

II C17 timber frame two-storey lobby-entrance cottage of three bays and chimney bay with brick nogging and pantile roof.

EXTERIOR: There is a brick plinth and the front elevation has brick to the girding beam at first floor level. The timber frame is in evidence on all elevations including small-frame panelling with short straight upward wall braces and brick nogging, posts at the rear elevation and queen struts at the gable ends. Two chimneys; an internal ridge stack and a mid C20 gable end stack added to the west end of the building enclosed within a weatherboarded storage shed abutting this end of the cottage.

INTERIOR: The north facing main door is offset from the lobby and opens immediately into the central bay. A chamfered axial spine beam, with ogee stops in the plaster ceilinged central room, runs through to the parlour on the east side of the axial chimney. Joists are present in the service (west end) bay which is now divided into two rooms; a kitchen at the front of the house and a sitting room at the rear. The wooden C19 staircase on the north side of the west wall of the central bay is planked between treads and handrail. The fireplace in the central bay is original but has been partially bricked to reduce its width. Windows are C20, plank doors are for the most part C19 and C20, although the door to the (east) parlour bay with its original chamfered door frame is C18.

The first floor has front and rear bedrooms above the service bay; the central bay has a study to the north and is subdivided into two bathrooms to the south, one of which is en suite to the bedroom which occupies the east bay. Parts of the timber frame can be seen internally on this floor including elements of the wall plate on the north wall, parts of tie beams and queen struts in the central and eastern bays, collars and purlins in the western bay, wind braces, wall braces and studding.

The weatherboarded extension with tile roof on the west end of the house is a later addition which is of lesser importance.

HISTORY: The form and fabric of the building indicates a C17 date for the cottage. It is depicted on the Ordnance Survey map of 1871 as a rectangular building without the small western extension which it currently has. The 1896 map shows an extension at the west. This extension shown for the first time on the 1896 map and again on the 1911 map is not of the same form or size as the present one and it can be certain that the present extension postdates 1911.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATON: Laundry Cottage is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Of special interest for its age and rarity, being a largely intact example of a C17 timber frame cottage of an affluent Hampshire husbandman. * For the quality of it's detailing such as the chamfered axial spine beam, with ogee stops and chamfered door frame.