The Old Ship

The Old Ship is a late-18th-century two-storey cottage built of red brick in Flemish Bond with periodic vitrified headers, with a tiled gable-ended roof and end stack.

The north-east front elevation features an off-set brick porch with a Victorian part-glazed door, a ground floor casement window under a cambered relieving arch, and a central first floor casement set just below the eaves. The south-west rear elevation has a lower, two-bay, two-storey gabled wing with buttresses on the southern flank. A small lean-to extension with garden doors abuts the cottage to the south-west, and a small brick extension with hipped roof projects to the south-east. To the north-west, a long single-storey outbuilding adjoins the cottage, and a modern single-storey lightweight extension with corrugated roof has been added to the rear at the north end of the south-west elevation.

The cottage follows a double pile plan with a full-width room at the front and two smaller rooms at the rear on the ground floor; the first floor has a similar three-room arrangement. A winder stair with dark-stained treads occupies its original position in a small hall between the front room and one of the rear rooms. Several rooms retain horsehair plaster and lime mortar walls, and lath and plaster ceilings are found throughout, although one ceiling is of beaded board. Parts of the timber frame are visible, including an axial beam in the front room, a transverse beam in the first floor front room, and exposed timber framing in the first floor corridor. Original features include an inglenook fireplace with bread oven and exposed bressumer in the ground floor front room, and rough-hewn crude timber door frames in several rooms. Later modifications comprise a Victorian fireplace and built-in cupboard in a first floor room and a modern quarry tiled kitchen floor. The attic, formerly a dormitory, retains a blocked window. The roof was originally thatched but is now tiled and reinforced with steel internally; the substantial purlins and common rafters remain largely in situ.

The long single-storey outbuilding abutting the north elevation may have been associated with access to a pre-18th-century part of the cottage, possibly including the two rear rooms. It has a door on the south-west rear elevation, flanked by two slender buttresses, with a new door inserted in the front elevation. The outbuilding contains an inglenook fireplace, though its stack has been removed. The roof structure is open with replacement purlins.

Part of the rear wing extension may predate the main cottage's late-18th-century construction. The building appears on the 1876 Ordnance Survey map with a footprint similar to the present day; by 1897, the map depicts the essentially modern footprint, excluding minor 20th-century additions. The cottage was modernised in the 1990s with a thorough roof refurbishment whilst retaining some original timbers. A lightweight single-storey extension was added with listed building consent in 2007. The cottage lies within the area of the 19th-century Fordingbridge Brick Works, one of five brickworks in the locality that exploited London Clay deposits at Sandleheath before ceasing operations in the early 20th century.