76 AND 78, UPPER GREEN ROAD

Details

TEWIN

1197/3/164 UPPER GREEN ROAD 11-JUN-86 UPPER GREEN (East side) 76 AND 78 (Formerly listed as: UPPER GREEN ROAD UPPER GREEN 76)

GV II A pair of houses built c. 1700 with rear extensions of the late C18 and north and south gable extensions of 1999 and 2000. The latter are not of special interest.

MATERIALS Rendered timber frame painted white under a gabled roof clad with plain tiles, with contemporary rear outshuts and late C18 brick rear extensions also under plain tiled gabled roofs. The extensions constructed against the north and south gable ends are of composition blocks clad with weatherboarding under gabled plain tiled roofs.

PLAN Semi-detached houses with identical rather than mirrored plans sharing a central stack with one principal ground floor room each, and service rooms in the rear outshuts. They were both enlarged by rear extensions in the late C18 and by north and south gable-end additions.

EXTERIOR The symmetrical two-storey west elevation facing the street has two C20 two-light casements to the ground floor plus a small single-light top-hung casement. The doorways were in the outer bays, that to the north (No. 78) is blocked, and that to the south (No. 76) has a mid-C18 flush-framed six-panelled door. The first floor is lit through one two-light C20 casement to each house. The central brick stack is set on the front roof slope, just off the ridge, and is provided with four chimney pots. The north and south gable ends each have an identical two-storey weatherboarded extension added in 1999 and 2000, replacing single-storey outshuts.

The rear, east, elevation was built with two single-storey outshuts, that to No. 76 longer than the other to the extent that it intrudes on the strict centre line of the two houses. It has a mid-C18 four-plank door with a leaded light and a top-hung casement to its right. The outshut to No. 78 has been absorbed by a later single-storey brick extension with C20 casements and a timber gabled porch fitted with a half-glazed door and with a plank stable-type inner door. A corresponding late-C18 extension to the rear of No. 76 has been modernised and given an attic room lit through a Velux roof-light.

INTERIOR The timber frame is evident in both floors, and the ground-floor rooms of both have chamfered bridging beams with tongue stops running east-west. The north and south timber frames in both houses are visible as an open screen between the main rooms and the weatherboarded gable-end extensions. No. 76 has a wide open fireplace with early C18 brickwork and a plain timber bressumer, but the fire opening in No. 78 has been rebuilt. A winder staircase to the east of the stack in No. 76 shows the middle rail of the c 1700 framing. The south wall of the bedroom above has timber framing with straight braces and the wall plate is prominent to the west wall, extending north into No. 78. The end framing at attic level is visible in No. 78.

HISTORY The manor of Tewin is of pre-Conquest origin, but the bulk of the houses are of the late C17, C18 and C19. Nos. 76 and 78 are on the east side of Upper Green Road and were associated with the farm buildings of Walnut Tree Farm, although the farmhouse itself was distant. The farm buildings are of the later C19, mainly of red brick, but Nos. 76 and 78 are of c 1700 and timber-framed. The farm buildings have been converted to a house, No. 74 Upper Green Road, located immediately behind (north-east) Nos. 76 and 78.

SOURCES William Page (ed.), Victoria County History of Hertfordshire, Vol. 3 (1912), 480-487 www.tewinvillage.co.uk (accessed 5 February 2009) J.T. Smith, English Houses, 1200-1800: The Hertfordshire Evidence. RCHME (1992), 95-112 Eric Mercer, English Vernacular Houses. RCHME (1975), 169

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION Nos. 76 and 78 Upper Green Road, Tewin, Hertfordshire are designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Although there have been some C18 and C20 alterations, Nos. 76 and 78 Upper Green Road retain a significant proportion of their historic fabric dating to c. 1700. * The surviving timber framing is of good quality and provides evidence of vernacular building traditions and craftmanship of the period. * The cottages are an increasingly rare survival of a once typical type of semi-detached timber-framed building constructed as a single structure.

LISTING NGR: TL2725115210

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