Hoath Cottage

HADLOW CARPENTERS LANE TQ 65 SW 3/14 Hoath Cottage

II

House, once doctor's house with surgery, circa 1700, refurbished in early C19, modernised and extended circa 1975. Ground floor level is Flemish bond brick with decorative use of burnt headers, above is timber-framed and clad with peg-tile; brick stack with C19 brick chimneyshaft; peg-tile roof, coach house is Flemish bond brick with peg-tile roof.

Plan: 4-room plan house facing west. The right (south) end room was added in the C20. The rest is a circa 1700 3-room lobby entrance plan house with parlour to right, kitchen/hall to left and unheated service room at the left (north) end. Axial stack serving back-to-back fireplaces between parlour and kitchen/hall. Front lobby entrance and winder stair in front of the stack. Present kitchen in secondary single-storey one-room plan block projecting at right angles to rear of original kitchen/hall. Late C19 coach house and stables projects forward from left end overlapping only a small part of the front. It has been converted to domestic use and has a rear gable end stack. Late C19 extension to rear in angle with main house.

House is 2 storeys with attics in the roofspace.

Exterior: Regular, not quite symmetrical, 5-window front of C20 casements with glazing bars including, at ground floor level, 3 projecting bay windows on curving timber brackets. The right end one is a circa 1970 copy but the others are early C20 and these have patterns of leaded glass in the side lights, Central doorway has original bead-moulded frame and plank door complete with most of its original ironwork. Early C20 gabled porch includes grilles of turned balusters. Roof is half-hipped both ends and includes a rear dormer.

The former coach house and stables contains only C20 casements and has a glazed door in the right side. The upper window in the front gable end was probably a hayloft loading hatch and has a curious brick hood.

Interior: the house of circa 1700 is well-preserved. Both ground floor fireplaces are brick with oak lintels; the parlour fireplace is smaller and has an unchamfered lintel and curving back; the soffit of the kitchen/hall fireplace has been cut backa little. The kitchen chamber fireplace has a plain timber chimneypiece which may be original. The left end service room has a plain crossbeam but most rooms have chamfered axial beams. Parlour and kitchen beams have step stops. Original winder stair. From first floor level it divides to the attic rooms with splat balusters. Roof of tie-beam trusses with staggered butt purlins. There is some original joinery around the house including plank doors on strap hinges.

Older people in the area remember Hoath Cottage as a doctor's house and the service room was then used as a surgery.

Listing NGR: TQ6279251063