Matthews Cottage and Rose Cottage

Details

ROGATE

1899/20/15 MIDHURST ROAD 26-NOV-1987 MATTHEW'S COTTAGE AND ROSE COTTAGE (Formerly listed as: MIDHURST ROAD MATTHEW'S COTTAGE) (Formerly listed as: MIDHURST ROAD ROSE COTTAGE) (Formerly listed as: MIDHURST ROAD NEWEY'S COTTAGE)

II Pair of houses, probably late C15 or early C16 with later additions. Newey's Cottage, added to the eastern end of Rose Cottage in around 1900, is not included in the listing.

MATERIALS: Timber frame with brick and plaster infill, partly faced in stone and brick, with a clay-tiled roof.

PLAN: Rose Cottage now has a lobby-entry plan, possibly imposed on an older open-hall arrangement. The house is of four bays, with a short hearth-bay (the entrance lobby is to the south of this) separating the western and central ground-floor rooms; to the east is a bay containing stairs and a short dogleg corridor, which leads to a third room at the eastern end of the house. The stairs lead up to a first-floor hallway with the two principal bedrooms in the end bays and two smaller bedrooms in between.

EXTERIOR: Both cottages are of one and a half storeys. Brick ridge stack in lobby entry position and pair of stacks on party wall with Matthew's Cottage extension.The main south front is mostly faced in rubble stone, with one section (to the right) brick-faced, and another (further left) rendered with incised lines to resemble ashlar joints. The ground floor has a series of small segment-headed windows with paired 4- and 6-light casements. The first-floor dormers have paired 4-light casements; those to the right have catslide roofs, while those to the left are gabled. To the rear of the house the timber frame is exposed: irregular box framing with some curved braces and a mixture of brick and plaster infill. The roof is hipped with a small gablet at its eastern end. The western half of Matthew's Cottage, which is taller and built wholly of brick, is clearly a later extension and probably originally formed a separate cottage. Rose Cottage has a modern single-storey extension to the rear.

INTERIORS: The ground floor of Rose Cottage comprises three principal rooms: one on either side of a large (probably inserted) brick hearth aligned with the entrance lobby, and a third to the east, where there is another, smaller hearth projecting from the end wall. Ceiling beams and joists are exposed throughout, as are elements of the wall framing including a massive central post in the western end wall; to the left of this is a blocked doorway leading through into what is now Matthew's Cottage. A narrow staircase at the rear of the house leads to a corridor that connects the four first-floor rooms. The remains of what appears to be a mullioned window survive in the wall dividing the two eastern rooms, indicating that the easternmost bay of the house may be a later addition. Truncated curved timbers in the middle two bays indicate that these trusses were originally arch-braced, possibly suggesting an earlier open-hall plan. A narrow access shaft opens into the roof space, showing rafters pegged together and surmounted by a ridge piece.

HISTORY: The core of the building, comprising the eastern bay of Matthew's Cottage and the western three bays of Rose Cottage (the eastern bay may be slightly later), was probably built as a single timber-framed house in the late C15 or early C16, and later refronted piecemeal in brick and stone. The existing main hearth was probably a later insertion, into what may previously have been an open hall. Later still, most likely in the C19, Matthew's Cottage was extended westward to form a separate house. Newey's Cottage was built onto the eastern end of the range in around 1900, and a single-storey extension was added to the rear of Rose Cottage in the late C20.

SOURCES: L F Salzman (ed.), Victoria County History of Sussex, vol. IV (1953)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Rose and Matthew's Cottages are designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Rose Cottage and part of Matthew's Cottage comprise a timber-framed house, probably of C15 or early C16 origins. * Although both houses have been re-fronted and extended, the early timber frame of the original core survives, and displays what may be the vestiges of an open hall in the central section.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

411745

Legacy System:

LBS

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