Court Place Cottage Pump Cottage

Details

SY 09 SE NEWTON POPPLEFORD HIGHERWAY, AND HARPFORD Harp ford 4/78 Pump Cottage and Court Place 26.11.84 Cottage II GV

2 cottages, formerly a farmhouse. Early-mid C16 farmhouse with major late C16 and C17 improvements; divided into 2 or more cottages in the C18, at which time Court Place Cottage was rebuilt, Pump Cottage (the surviving older part) was modernised with a new service extension circa 1976. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; one cob stack, the others are stone rubble and all have plastered brick tops. 2 adjoining cottages in an original 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing west. Pump Cottage is on the left (northern) end and occupies the former service end room, through-passage and hall of the original farmhouse and has a 2-storey service rear block built circa 1976 at right angles behind the service end room and passage. Court Place Cottage occupies the right (southern) end and is an C18 rebuild of the former inner room. This cottage has a projecting end stack.In Pump Cottage the former hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage and the former service end room has a rear lateral stack. Both cottages are 2 storeys. Overall regular but not symmetrical 4-window front, 2 windows each, and comprising C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars. The first floor left casement of Court Place Cottage contains variously-sized rectangular panes of leaded glass and includes margin panes. The first floor windows of Pump Cottage are half dormers and those of Court Place Cottage rise a little into the thatch. Pump Cottage has a roughly central doorway to the original passage and it still contains a late C16 oak frame with a flat-arched head and chamfered surround. (An identical doorframe also survives to rear of the passage). The front has a C20 stable-type door and a circa 1976 porch with a hipped thatch roof supported on timber twisted baluster-like posts. Court Place Cottage has an entrance on the end in front of the stack. It has a C19 stable-type door and is sheltered by a contemporary porch with a leanto thatch roof. The roof is gable-ended to right and half-hipped to left. It steps up from Pump Cottage to Court Place Cottage. The rear block roof is also half-hipped. Good interior to Pump Cottage. Here C16 and C17 features survive from the farmhouse. The oldest feature exposed is the original 3-bay roof which is carried on 2 side pegged jointed cruck trusses. The section over the hall including the underside of the thatch is smoke-blackened and so too is the section over the service end room but this is only slightly smoke-blackened. The sooting indicates that the original house was open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. Evidently the service end was floored over whilst the open hearth was kept in the hall. The lower passage screen is plastered over but may be a C16 or C17 screen. The service end was floored over in the late C16 and has a soffit-chamfered and step-stopped half beam against the end wall. There is also an axial beam with empty mortices from removed posts and stave holes from the wattle- and-daub infil. This shows that the room was then divided into 2 small rooms. The rear wall also includes a contemporary 3-light oak window frame with chamfered mullions, narrow lights and arch-headed lights. It is now blocked but has never been glazed. The fireplace has been rebuilt but it appears to be an C18 insertion. The hall has a large and impressive plastered cob fireplace. Its oak lintel has a broad soffit chamfer and is supported on the right side by a large oak post with jowled head. The fireplace was probably inserted in the late C16 or early C17. At the same time a chamber was built over the passage jettying into the hall as far as the front of the chimney breast. About the same time or a little later the hall was floored over by a large axial beam, soffit-chamfered with large pyramid stops. Court Place Cottage appears to be a complete rebuild. It has a probably C18 axial beam with broad soffit chamfer and contemporary fireplace with similarly-finished oak lintel. The roof here was not inspected. Pump Cottage, though comprising only part of the original farmhouse, is remarkably well-preserved. For instance, it is very rare for C16 oak doorframes to survive both ends of the passage. Other C16 and C17 features maybe hidden behind later plaster.

Listing NGR: SY0914490240

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

352400

Legacy System:

LBS

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