Canal Cottage

SD 58 NW, 279- /2/10000

SEDGEWICK ROAD, 19, Canal Cottage

II

House and attached stables. c1820, with later C19 and C20 alterations and additions. Built to serve the northern extension of the Lancaster Canal, completed by 1819, and involving the construction of the Hincaster tunnel. Rubble limestone, part painted, with roughly-shaped quoins, coped gables, broad gable stacks and a Westmorland slate roof, laid to diminishing courses. Linear plan, with heated rooms at either end, and stabling and storage between. FRONT: five bays, two storeys with attics, with 2-bay single storey extension to right. House part occupies two bays at right-hand end of taller range, with stacked windows to end bay, all with C20 joinery, the lower two in openings with segmental heads. Doorway enclosed by C20 lean-to porch. Centre bay with taking-in door to first floor. Further left, a vertical joint defined by line of former quoinstones. Doorway to ground floor to left end bay. REAR: Stacked windows to left end bay, the ground and first floor openings with two-over-two-pane sashes beneath segmental arches. To the right, small lean-to, and then a ground floor window, with a similar, but blocked opening above. Centre bay with a wide stable doorway beneath a stone lintel and with a boarded door. (This is located below a line of former quoinstones). To the right, an added stone stairway leads to a first floor taking-in door. End bay to right with a wide stable door, and Window openings to first and attic floors. INTERIOR: not inspected.

HISTORY: the cottage and stabling formed part of the extension of the Lancaster Canal from Tewinfield to Kendal. The route of the canal in the Hincaster area was influenced by the need to carry the canal close to the Sedgewick gunpowder works. The wharf at Hincaster was close by the cottage and stables, as was the entrance to the Hincaster Tunnel (q.v.) and it seems probable that the siting of the cottage and stabling was intended to play a part in the management of both. A rare surviving example of a combined dwelling and stable, which, despite minor alterations and additions illustrates important aspects of inland waterway management in the early C 19, and which contributes to the setting of the adjacent entrance portal of the Hincaster Tunnel.

Listing NGR: SD5086785047