Hawkins

Hawkins is a stone-built dwelling at Whitmore Lane, Chittlehamholt, possibly originally a tenement farmhouse that was later divided into two cottages and has now reverted to single occupation. It dates from the late 17th century with 19th-century alterations.

The building is constructed of stone rubble and cob, unrendered to the rear, beneath an asbestos slate roof with gable ends. It features large rendered stone rubble stacks at each end; the left-hand stack has a tapered cap heightened in brick. A further stone rubble stack with brick shaft serves the gable end of a rear wing. The building is two storeys high with a three-window range to the front elevation, though fenestration is irregular. Windows are principally late 19th-century two and three-light casements with two panes per light. A slated gabled roof covers a latticed porch to the left side, with a plank door to the right. A small lean-to slate roof at the right end shelters an external cast iron water pump.

The plan consists of direct entry into two large heated rooms to the front range, each served by gable end stacks. The right-hand room has a winder staircase projecting into the room at its centre rear wall. The left-hand room contains a winder staircase in an integral rear outshut located in the outer angle of a wing projecting at right angles from the rear right side of the front left-hand room.

The precise development has been obscured by 19th-century alterations, though a thick partition wall rising to the roof apex divides the two front rooms. The original roof over the right-hand room has a much lower ridge level than that over the left-hand room; however, both roof structures appear to date from the 17th century. The left-hand room exhibits higher quality detailing and may have served as a parlour, while the right-hand room retains evidence of a partition towards its left end. If the front window is an insertion into a blocked doorway, that partition may have created a passage between the two main rooms; the present doorway into the right-hand room certainly appears to be a later insertion. Probably in the 18th century, a gable-ended two-storeyed wing was added to the rear of the left-hand room, creating a sizeable additional heated room. The fireplace has been blocked, but there is no bread oven projection, suggesting it did not serve as a kitchen wing. Its addition may have been prompted by the division of the house into two cottages, though the possibility cannot be ignored that the house was intended from the outset for dual occupation.

The interior retains considerable character. The left-hand room has a scroll-stopped chamfered cross ceiling beam and a 19th-century fireplace surround, with a steep timber winder staircase in the outshut to its rear left-hand corner. The right-hand room features rough hewn ceiling joists and a beam, with a steep timber winder staircase to its centre rear. The 19th-century joinery survives intact throughout. The roof structure over the right-hand room is of 17th-century date, with heavy straight principals set low in the walls with trenched purlins; the battens, rafters and plaster ceiling survive below the superimposed 20th-century roof structure. The roof structure over the left-hand range is not fully accessible. A single truss with slightly curving feet and trenched purlins is supported on timber apparently slightly blackened through age rather than smoke.

Hawkins has remained relatively unspoilt since the 19th century and retains several interesting features and an unusual plan form.