Bassetts Cottage And Asturias Cottage

TQ 54 NE 5/159

HILDENBOROUGH MILL LANE (east side) Bassetts cottage and Asturias Cottage

GV II

Pair of small houses. Possibly C17 or earlier in origin, judging from some of the brickwork, but extensively re-modelled, probably in the C19, re-using C16 and C17 timbers. Flemish bond brick with blue headers to the ground floor, some of the brick on the end walls handmade; first floor tile-hung; peg-tile roof; brick stack. 1980s rear additions weatherboarded with old peg-tile roofs.

Plan and Development: A pair of mirror plan roadside houses, facing west. Each house has a principal room to the front, heated from back-to-back fireplaces in the axial stack, with a straight stair rising inside the room against the rear wall. Front doors in the north and south ends. Short rear wings at right angles appear to be secondary, providing unheated service rooms. These have been extended in the 1980s by single-storey rear additions which match one another. Most of the internal carpentry is C16 or C17 but the details suggest that almost all of it is re-used.

Exterior: 2 storeys. Roof half-hipped at ends. Symmetrical 4-window front with a set of matching C19 2-light first floor timber casements, 2-panes per light. 2 similar 3-light ground floor casements, these are slightly recessed with chamfered lintels. Asturias Cottage, to the right (south) has a shallow C20 timber bow window with small panes on the right (south return).

Interior: The principal room of each house has a chamfered stopped crossbeam and joists. Bassetts Cottage has joists with step nick stops. Asturias Cottage has joists with step stops on one side and runout stops on the other, both sets of joists may be re-used. The exposed rails on the rear wall framing of both houses are re-used. Asturias Cottage preserves C19 matchboarding to the stair, and both houses have probably C18 ledged plank stair doors with strap hinges.

Roof: Asturias Cottage only inspected. This has a queen post roof, with almost every timber re-used with redundant mortises, the existing fixings are long projecting pegs. Some of the rafters have a soot crust and may have originated from an open hall house.

An attractive pair of small traditional houses. Group value with Limes Farmhouse opposite and to the south.

Listing NGR: TQ5596649658