Cobblestones

TQ 63 49 7/20 20.10.54

HADLOW CHURCH STREET (east side) Cobblestones (formerly listed as Keen's Cottage)

GV II

House with shop. Late C16/early C17 with mid/late C17 and late C18 extensions. Timber framed structure, the ground floor has mostly been underbuilt with sections of different C18 and C19 brick (both English and Flemish bond), the first floor is clad with painted peg-tile on the front and weatherboarding on the other sides; brick stack; peg-tile roof.

Plan and Development: four-room plan house, end on to the street to the west. The front room was formerly a shop. The front two-room section is late C16/early C17 although the partitions are probably later. The second room is heated by a C19 axial stack. The third room was added in the mid/late C17 and the back room in the late C18. It is not known how the house was heated before the C19. According to local tradition it was once a baker's shop. House is two storeys with a cellar under the rear room.

Exterior: the front gable end has a symmetrical front. The first floor has a small C20 casement with glazing bars whilst the ground floor has a late C18 shopfront. The central doorway has been blocked by a C20 window with glazing bars but each side are C18 curving bays containing fixed pane windows with glazing bars. The right (southern) long side has an irregular disposition of various windows including a late C19 horned four-pane sash and a possibly late C18 three-light window containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The left (north) side has similarly varied fenestration including two late C18 windows (both with one light containing diamond panes of ancient leaded glass). This is also the entrance side and contains two doorways. The front one dates from circa 1948 when the shop door was blocked. The rear doorway contains a C19 plank door under a contemporary flat hood. The rear section has exposed framing at ground floor level: it is nogged with C18 brick.

Interior: the front section, the original part, has joists and chamfered beams of-heavy scantling. The framing is exposed on the first floor and has large curving tension braces in both end walls. The roof is two bays and carried on a tie-beam truss with clasped side purlins, diminishing principals and small straight windbraces. The mid C17 roof behind is a distinct separate bay although it is of similar construction with clasped side purlins. The rear section has plain but sturdy carpentry and its two bay roof is carried on a collared tie-beam truss.

Cobblestones is part of a good group of listed buildings on Church Street.

Listing NGR: TQ6344649776