Laundry Cottage

Laundry Cottage is a 17th-century timber-frame cottage of three bays and a chimney bay, located in Heckfield, Hampshire. The building has a brick plinth and a pantile roof. The front elevation features brickwork to the first-floor girding beam. The timber frame is visible on all sides, showcasing small-frame panelling with short straight upward wall braces and brick nogging, posts at the rear, and queen struts at the gable ends. Two chimneys are present: an internal ridge stack and a mid-20th century gable end stack, which is enclosed within a weatherboarded storage shed at the west end.

The north-facing main door is offset from the lobby and leads directly into the central bay. A chamfered axial spine beam, with run-out ogee stops in the plastered ceiling of the central room, extends through to the parlour on the east side of the axial chimney. The west bay, now divided into two rooms (a kitchen at the front and a sitting room at the rear), retains original joists. A wooden staircase, planked between treads and handrail, is situated on the north side of the west wall of the central bay. The original fireplace in the central bay has been partially bricked to reduce its width. Windows are 20th century, most doors are 19th and 20th century, although the doorframe to the east parlour bay is original from the 18th century.

The first floor comprises front and rear bedrooms above the service bay, a study to the north in the central bay, and two bathrooms to the south, one of which is en suite to the bedroom in the east bay. Internal timber frame elements are visible, including sections of the wall plate, tie beams, queen struts, collars, purlins, wind braces, wall braces, and studding.

A weatherboarded extension with a tile roof on the west end of the house is a later addition of lesser importance. The cottage was depicted on an Ordnance Survey map of 1871 as a rectangular building without the current west extension. An earlier, different extension is shown on maps from 1896 and 1911, confirming the present extension postdates 1911.

Laundry Cottage is designated at Grade II for its age and rarity, representing a largely intact example of a 17th-century timber-frame cottage belonging to an affluent 17th-century farmer. The quality of details, such as the chamfered axial spine beam with ogee stops and the chamfered door frame, also contribute to its significance.