Summary
An early-C17 house, timber framed and rendered.
Reasons for Designation
No.10 Silver Street, an early-C17 house, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: it has special interest as a vernacular house constructed of local materials in accordance with local custom and tradition;
* Intactness: despite some C19 and C20 alterations and minor additions, both fabric and plan form survive substantially intact, as well as significant internal detail;
* Historic interest: C19 and early-C20 alterations and minor additions illustrate changes in fashion and use;
* Group value: it has group value with other listed buildings nearby on Silver Street.
History
Godmanchester is on the site of a small Roman settlement, Durovigutum, which seems to have grown around the point where several Roman roads, travelling from the south, joined with Ermine Street to cross the River Great Ouse at Huntingdon. Silver Street is identified as one of these, and is named as such on historic Ordnance Survey (OS) Maps. In the C19 and early-C20 the road was known as Duck End, and the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments of England (RCHME) volume on Huntingdonshire, published in 1926, still refers to it by that name, although the OS map of 1926 already names it Silver Street. This volume identified three 'monuments' of note on the street: one of these, monument 25, described as a cottage, three tenements, was subsequently demolished; monument 24 may be identified with no.5 Silver Street, listed at Grade II, and monument 26 with no.10 Silver Street, described as being T-shaped in plan, with an upper storey projecting on curved brackets. The accompanying photograph shows the house much as it is today, while historic OS maps seem to show that the lean-to to the north gable was added between 1888 and 1901, and a glazed structure to the north of the rear wing was in place before 1926.
Details
An early-C17 house with minor C19 and C20 alterations.
MATERIALS:
Timber-framed and rendered, with brick chimney stacks and a thatched roof.
PLAN:
The house is T shaped in plan and lobby-entry in form.
EXTERIOR:
A main east range has a rear wing to the north end of the west elevation, to the north of which is a modern single storey lean-to structure. The lean-to is attached to a wider lean-to that stands against the north gable of the main range. There is a central chimney stack to the main range and a second, internal stack to the gable end of the rear wing. The house is of two storeys, the main range with an attic, the upper floor is jettied on the main, east-facing elevation; the eaves and jetty are bracketed. The east elevation is of three bays with a central, six-panelled front door, flanked by C19 canted bays with horned sash windows. There are two casement windows to the first floor. The north elevation has modern French windows at ground floor level. The south elevation of the rear wing has modern first-floor windows, with sash windows below. To the north, the roof extends down to the ground floor, which is enclosed by the lean-to.
INTERIOR:
The ground floor room of the west wing has a wide inglenook fireplace with a substantial bressumer, to the south of which is a cupboard with a plank and batten door. A two panelled door opens into the rooms of the main front range, where a substantial proportion of studwork survives in the north room, as well as a chamfered beam, with lambs-tongue stops, and a deeply chamfered bressumer to the fireplace. The south room contains a modern fireplace, and there is no visible timber framing.
Timber framing is also visible on the first floor; the main range in particular includes jowled posts, tie beams, and studs, as well as a bressumer over a fireplace with a plain surround, and a cast-iron basket grate. Other joinery includes a plank and batten door and two-panelled doors. Access from a bedroom into the roof space of the west wing reveals wide floor boards and limewashed wattle and daub between the rafters.
