Mole Cottage

Mole Cottage is a house dated 1645, situated end-on to the street. A full-height single bay extension was added later on the north side, also set end-on to the street. The house is timber-framed, with roughcast rendering to the front elevation; the upper floors have a mock timber-frame appearance over a ground floor of painted brick. The roof is of plain clay tile, with a decorative bargeboard to the gable facing the street, and a large brick stack.

Originally a two-bay cottage, it comprised a north hearth room and a south service room, with two rooms above each. The front elevation features a pair of 19th or early 20th century windows on the ground floor, and a 19th-century six-light rectangular bay window with a hipped roof of shaped tiles on the first floor. An attic window has two lights. Later additions were made to the west and east.

Inside, the 17th-century timber frame is visible, particularly in the east wall at ground and first floor levels, and in the end and middle trusses. Features include corner tension braces, mortices for diamond mullions in the east wall of the former service room (likely for windows or windholes), a clasped purlin roof with wind braces, old planked doors and fireplaces on both the ground and first floors to the north. The date 1645 and the initials “WK” are scratched into a ground floor timber in the east wall. WK may refer to William King, a draper who bequeathed the property to his son-in-law, Gerald Winstanley, who established a community on common land at St George’s Hill and later at Little Heath in 1649.