Littlecott

SY 09 SE NEWTON POPPLEFORD HARPFORD AND HARPFORD 4/62 - Littlecott 30.6.61 GV II

House. Circa 1850. Plastered stone rubble or brick; probably brick stacks with plastered brick chimney shafts; thatch roof, shingles and felt to rear outshots. L-shaped building. Main block faces south with 3-room plan. There is a cross passage left (west) of centre between the 2 principal rooms. Right (east) end room is the kitchen and the 1-room plan rear block projects at right angles behind and includes the stair. Kitchen has an end stack and both principal rooms have rear lateral stacks. Contemporary outshots to rear. Main house is 2 storeys. Cottage ornee style. 4-window front of circa 1850 fenestration. The 3-window arrangement is symmetrical about the front doorway. The door itself is probably a C20 replacement but the porch is original. It is made of light wrought ironwork in simple geometric patterns and has a tented roof. It is flanked by French windows with margin panes and the top glazing bars intersecting in Gothic style. Both have porches similar to the doorway except that these are flat-roofed. All the first floor windows are 2- light casements with glazing bars and margin panes and there is another ground floor right. The left half of the front breaks forward very slightly from the right half. The deep eaves are carried on small shaped brackets and there are pronounced eyebrows over the first floor windows. The roof is gable-ended to right and half- hipped to left. The left end includes a French window with porch and a first floor casement, both identical to those on the front. The back of the rear block has a ground floor window with plain mullions looking as if it had been an unglazed dairy or larder window. The other windows on the rear and including the outshots are casements or fixed pane windows with leaded panes in the same pattern as the front casements. The outshots stop short of the western end and the corner provided is taken up by a small gazebo with its doorway angled across the corner and its walls of trellis-work. On the right (eastern) end of the main block is a C20 flat-roofed and glass-walled porch built between Littlecott and Littlecott Cottage (q.v.). Interior contains much original joinery detail. The principal rooms have marble chimneypieces and there is a pointed arch doorway from the central room to the kitchen. Littlecott is a very well-preserved house of its period and its fenestration is particularly attractive. However its plan form suggests that it may be a rebuild of an earlier house.

Listing NGR: SY0911790347