Puckle Cottage

WEST MALLING

TQ6757 NORMAN ROAD 1156-0/2/118 No.91 Puckle Cottage

II

Cottage, formerly Pest House and later 2 cottages. Earliest part comprising 1 room on ground floor and one on 1st floor was built as a Pest House c1760 after a plague in 1756 which killed 64 people in one week in the town and the building was isolated 1/4 mile from the town. This was extended soon afterwards to add 2 more rooms, then in the late C18 an adjoining 2-up 2-down cottage was built and the whole now forms an L-shape. Timber-framed building clad mainly in weatherboarding with stone and red brick to ground floor and right end, and tiled roof with 2 brick chimneystacks. Front has 3 windows with a 12-pane sash, a 9-pane sash and a central sliding casement. Ground floor has C20 modern window, C20 door and French window. Right side elevation has 1 sash to ground floor and extension with 2 casements and left side mid C19 doorcase with penticed weather hood on brackets and 4-panelled door, the top 2 panels glazed. The rear elevation has a weatherboarded mid-C19 outshut with 1 sash with 4 panes, a casement and C20 plank door. Interior has a dining toom ceiling with criss-cross timbers including sections of hop poles and pieces of reused timbers, showing the Pest House was erected in haste and at minimum cost. A plank in the kitchen has the Roman numerals VI to XI in foot measurements and was obviously an C18 measuring rule. This was removed from the 1st floor. 4-plank doors. The 1st floor room above formerly had carvings of names from 1763 on the original doors but these were destroyed in a fire in 1979. By the time of the Tithe Map survey of 1841 the building was no longer in use as a Pest House but was occupied by 2 labourers and their families and known as Pest House Cottages. History of building researched and included in a report by Mr Vernon Leonard, a former owner of the building.

Listing NGR: TQ6747757877