Fern Cottage, Rose Cottage And End Cottage

This is a row of three workers' cottages dating from the 17th to 18th centuries, with 19th-century alterations and 20th-century extensions. They are built of coursed limestone rubble. Fern Cottage has concrete tile roofs to the main range, while Rose Cottage and End Cottage have stone slate roofs. Fern Cottage has a brick stack above the roofline. Rose Cottage has a main stack of stone and a smaller right-hand stack of brick. End Cottage has a large external stone stack rebuilt in brick above the roofline.

Plan and Development

Fern Cottage and End Cottage are of single-cell, end-stack plan, with a winder stair behind the stack. Fern Cottage has an entrance passage separated from the main cell by a stud partition wall, a rear outshut probably dating from the 19th century, and a deeper additional bay with a small outshut to the north, added around 1960. The left-hand cell of Rose Cottage is also of single-cell plan, probably with a former gable-end entrance. A further single-cell bay with a smaller stack was added to the south. The stair in Rose Cottage is positioned in front of the main stack.

While the row of cottages appears as a rectangular block on the 1778 parish map, the southern bay of Rose Cottage is offset and aligned with End Cottage, suggesting it is of more recent construction than the northern cell. Fern Cottage is of one-and-a-half storeys. Rose Cottage and End Cottage are two full storeys, possibly with raised eaves to accommodate a larger upper storey.

Fern Cottage

The exterior is one-and-a-half storeys with a steeply pitched gable enclosing the upper floor window. Windows are paired timber casements, each of eight panes, under timber lintels and with stone or concrete cills. In the core of the house, windows have deep chamfered internal openings. The cottage has a plank front door.

Inside, substantial chamfered timber framing is exposed in the ground floor entrance passage, while lighter scantling studding is exposed on the first floor. The main room has a deep chamfered axial beam and a chamfered bressumer over the fireplace. The fireplace opening is enclosed by dressed stone piers added in the 1960s, flanked by an alcove to the left, possibly a former oven. A larger alcove is set into the front wall of the cottage. Blocked openings in the rear wall have timber lintels. Next to the stack is a section of reused panelling, possibly introduced to the cottage.

On the ground floor, an 18th-century oak fielded panel door with butterfly hinges leads to a winder stair with a curved outer profile and a replaced balustrade at landing level. On the first floor, a similar door with four panels on the inner face has HL hinges. The cottage has plank internal doors to the rear outshut. Floors are of limestone flags. A blocked doorway on the first floor formerly connected with Rose Cottage. The deeper northern bay of the cottage was rebuilt around 1960 on earlier footings.

Rose Cottage

The exterior is of two storeys in two unequal bays with a large stack to the left bay and a smaller stack to the right. The entrance is placed off-centre, leading to the right-hand bay, and has a 1970s door in a wide architrave under a stone lintel. Windows are later 19th-century horned sashes with stone quoins and lintels.

Inside, the ground floor has a chamfered axial beam in the principal room, which has a large fireplace with a replaced bressumer. The smaller fireplace has a rebuilt brick arch. Stairs rise in front of the main stack, and floors are replaced. The ground-floor door between the bays, probably 19th century, is reused but set in an earlier doorway which is splayed on one side and was probably the original gable-end entrance to the cottage. A filled-in doorway leading to Fern Cottage is partially blocked by the stairs, which are rebuilt.

The internal upper gable wall between the bays was formerly the external southern wall of the single-bay cottage. It has an original splayed loading entrance with a replaced door. The central first-floor doorcase is chamfered and probably of late 19th or early 20th-century date.

The roof is of two builds. The northern bay has an oak butt purlin roof above an elm truss. Evidence revealed during restoration of superimposed roof structures and of the position of the tie beam suggests that the roof may have been replaced in the 19th century, raising the eaves to give added upper floor space. The roof of the southern bay was not visible but is said to resemble End Cottage.

End Cottage

End Cottage occupies the smallest, southernmost plot of the row. It has an external stepped stone gable-end stack, a plank door to the left of the bay, and a pair of possibly early 19th-century two-light timber casements, each of eight panes, one to each floor.

Inside, it is said to have deep chamfered tie beams and joists, possibly 17th century in date, a winder stair behind the stack, and a built-in cupboard against the party wall. It is possible that the roof was altered in the 19th century, raising the eaves to give added upper floor space and creating two full storeys.

Historical Context

This row of small workers' cottages lies in Church Walk, a narrow lane or walkway previously known as the Passage or Tchure. It runs behind but parallel to the south-east side of the village green and leads to the 14th-century church. A row of buildings is marked on the site on a parish map of 1788, which shows enclosed gardens and orchards to the south of the cottages, with similar boundaries to the current boundary walls, backing onto Upper Church Close. A number of new houses were built between the lane and the green in the 19th century, giving Church Walk its present character, where the cottages are tightly packed in the core of the village. In 1876 the row is shown as separate single-cell units with rear outshuts. It is possible that each reverted to single-cell workers' cottages during the later 19th-century agricultural depression.

West Oxfordshire is characterised by limestone buildings, both of dressed stone and of rubble like these, and has a long history of high quality masonry associated with quarries such as Taynton.

In plan, Fern Cottage, Rose Cottage and End Cottage are single-cell, end-stack buildings of a 17th and 18th-century type identified by Wood-Jones in his study of vernacular houses in the Banbury area, but also built further south in this area of Oxfordshire. As a group they show how single-cell units have been adapted and sometimes linked as status, use and ownership have varied. While Fern Cottage stands out as the most complete and richly fitted of the three, Rose Cottage and End Cottage are an integral part of the group whose position in the historic core of the village strongly defines the vernacular tradition in the area. Together they give three variants of the evolution of a similar plan. The facades show three phases of door and window openings and their fittings, while the variety of treatment of chimney stacks and roofing material is commonly found in the area.

Boundary walls and outbuildings survive, particularly at the rear of Fern and Rose Cottages, describing the extent of village plots and how they were used. These include an external privy and an outbuilding which may have been a brewhouse, also built of limestone rubble.