White Cottage

Details

House, formerly agricultural labourer's cottage.

DATE:
C18, extended and refenestrated in later C20. The ground floor's circa 1980 north east extension with garage, south ground floor late C20 bay window and C20 west porch are not of special interest.

MATERIALS:
Timber-framed and clad in weather-boarding except for the east elevation which is of painted brick in Sussex bond. Tiled roof with external brick chimneystacks to north and south. Windows are a mixture of C19 wooden casements and C20 wooden or metal casements with leaded lights.

PLAN:
A two bay house with end chimneystacks, two unequal sized rooms on each floor, central stairs and rear outshot with catslide. The building is set endwise to the road and the main entrance, originally in the centre of the east side, is now in the centre of the west side. The east side is of two storeys with three windows and there is a catslide roof over the outshot to west.

EXTERIOR:
The east side has three late C20 casements to the first floor and one to the south of the ground floor. The northern part of the ground floor was removed circa 1980 when an extension was added. The north side has an external brick chimneystack and two later C20 ground floor casements. The west side originally had a catslide roof along the full width but a central two storey half-gabled extension was added after 1937 with one wooden casement on the upper floor. The ground floor has two late C20 top opening casements, a C19 wooden casement and a later C20 half-gabled porch. The south side has two triangular-shaped two bay C20 casements and a ground floor C20 brick bay incorporating an earlier lean-to weather-boarded privy.

INTERIOR:
The main entrance is now by means of the west porch, leading through a C19 plank door into the outshot. Facing are two doors, the southern with ledged plank door leading to a cellar with worn brick steps flanked by original partition walls. The northern door leads to the larger north room, originally the main living room with cooking facilities, which has a large open brick fireplace with gabled spice hole and wooden bressumer. Visible ceiling beams are thin C20 beams, but earlier beams above at right angles have been reported. The smaller dining room to the south, probably originally the parlour, had no exposed early features. A straight flight staircase leads to the first floor. The north bedroom has a wide doorcase with moulded architrave, four fielded panels, large L-hinges and iron latch. A cupboard in the north wall is built around the external chinmneystack. The south room has a similar doorcase with four fielded panels. The central bathroom had an exposed C18 lath and plaster wall with diagonal braces at the time of inspection. The bathroom roof is C20. There was no access into the roof of the original part of the building.

HISTORY:
A document of 1840 in the East Sussex Record Office names a Richard Walters as the owner occupier. It appears to have been an agricultural labourer's cottage in 1937 when it was sold off from the local farm. Pre-1950s photographs show a cottage with two sashes of mid-C19 type with central glazing bars and simple central doorcase of four panels on the east side with a rustic pergola.

In 1954 a garage was erected to the north east of the cottage, and in 1980 an extension was built to the ground floor connecting the original building to the garage, enlarging the lounge and providing a shower room and an additional bedroom and study.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE:
A mid-C18 two bay end chimneystack house with rear outshot which retains a readable plan form, a significant proportion of its original fabric and an original open fireplace and joinery, despite later extensions and alterations.

SOURCES:
East Sussex Record Office TDE 12 for ownership in 1840.

Listing NGR: TQ7415612352

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

408591

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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