3 And 4, Bird-In-Hand Street

These two cottages, originally built as a single house, likely date from the mid to late 17th century, with later alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. They are timber-framed with weatherboarding, built on sandstone footings, and feature brick stacks and chimneyshafts, all under a peg-tile roof.

The cottages were formed by subdividing a larger 17th-century house. Originally, it was a three-room house with a central lobby entrance. A later, probably 19th-century, axial stack was added, serving as the right-end stack of No. 4. The winder staircase at the rear of this stack is likely the original staircase for the house. The house predates the adjacent buildings, No. 1 and No. 2, as evidenced by blocked windows in the left-end wall, now hidden by the adjoining property.

The building is two storeys high with attics in the roof space, and a cellar beneath the left end (No. 3). Rear outshots provide service rooms.

The exterior has an irregular pattern of windows, with four on the ground floor and two on the first, mostly 19th and 20th-century casements with diamond-leaded glass. Notably, one first-floor window above the centre room retains its original flat-faced mullion with a shallow internal ogee moulding. There are two 19th-century plank front doors, each with a shallow hood supported by shaped timber brackets, leading up stone steps. The house has a tall, steeply-pitched hipped roof with two hip-roofed dormer windows.

Inside, original 17th-century carpentry is well-preserved, including wall framing with large timbers and curving tension braces. The end rooms have plain axial joists, while the main central room retains a moulded axial beam. A blocked fireplace in the central room shows brick sides and back and has a chamfered oak lintel. The roof structure comprises tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins. Blocked windows are visible on each floor within the left-end wall, with a grille of slender diamond mullions remaining in the cellar window.

Nos. 3 and 4 represent a well-preserved 17th-century house and are part of the important group of listed buildings associated with Groombridge Place in Old Groombridge.