15 AND 17, HIGH STREET

Details

790/0/10093 HIGH STREET 11-SEP-03 Southgate 15 AND 17

II Pair of late-Georgian cottages. Timber-frame construction on a brick plinth, with external roughcast render and interior lath and plaster finish. The wood is of hand-sawn elm. The dividing wall between Nos. 15 and 17 is brick. Hipped M shaped roof of hand-made tiles to front attached with wooden pins and pantiles to rear. Intact central shared brick stacks with little cornice each with four chimney pots.

PLAN. Double-pile plan with rear brick cross wing, probably a raising of an earlier single storey outshut. A lean-to conservatory has been added to the side of the cross wing in each cottage.

EXTERIOR. Each cottage has a single window range of sashes to front: 16-pane and un-horned to ground floor; first floor left is a later 4-pane horned sash and right a 12-pane horned sash; windows are more altered to rear though some sashes retained. Entrance doorways are to each side with bracketed shallow-gabled hood, divided overlight (original to number 17, later glazing to number 15) and 6-panelled door. INTERIOR. Original plan downstairs, with side hall and stairs rising opposite the door, the same in each cottage. The back room in both instances has been enlarged, taking in part of the entrance hall, which has been halved in width as a result. Steep stairs with stick balusters and small landing balustrade, all retained. Original wide floorboards (individually fitted by notching over joists). Each of the main rooms had a fireplace and all but one, in the back room of No. 17, survive: another, that in the front parlour of No.17, has been replaced with a modern surround. The remaining fireplaces are quite plain, with restrained mouldings: all except one are boarded up. The front 'parlours' of both Nos. 15 and 17 illustrate clearly the modestly higher social status of this room: 6-panelled door (the rest are shallow 4-panelled), a small reeded plaster cornice with corner paterae, and in No. 15 only, a dado rail and moulded fireplace with hints of classical detail. The rear room has arched alcoves either side of fireplace, which are of recent construction, as are the alcoves in the hallway and back rooms.

Upstairs, in both houses, a partially glazed partition has been erected across the landing halving its size, but creating additional bedroom space. In No. 17 this has been added to the back bedroom: in No. 15 the back bedroom gains space from the landing, but also loses some to form a lobby, communal space through which there is access to a bathroom in the rear wing. In No.17 this is a bedroom accessible only through the back bedroom.

HISTORY. Southgate was originally a woodland hamlet in coppice woods outside Enfield Chase (the name referring to the south entrance to this) in the parish of Edmonton. The Chase was enclosed in 1777 and High Street Southgate, formerly South Street, a separate hamlet, became an area of small businesses and services. Amongst those recorded were wheelwrights, hurdlemakers, bakers, butchers, cartwrights, dairymen, blacksmiths, farriers, owners of timber yards and plant nurseries. Numbers 15-17 are a long established builder's premises established 1910 and described in 1987 as 'One of Southgate's respected and old established family concerns, H Miller and Sons, Plumbers and Decorators', thus still reflecting the early C19 character of the area , which is now overwhelmingly suburban. Next door is a pair of cottages of similar date, numbers 5 & 7, number 5 shown in an early photograph as a school house; this however has been substantially rebuilt. Number 7 retains more original fabric and has Gothick intersecting glazing. All these cottages retain their front gardens bounded by picket fences. Detailed investigation of the original enclosure map of 1801 reveals evidence of development on this site in the form of 5 houses, although not in their present location or form. SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE. These are late-Georgian cottages which have distinctive features. These include their timber framed construction, of which they are a late example, and the survival of internal decorative detail, illustrative of their particular social context. Despite some internal alterations they also retain their essential plan form. The cottages demonstrate the development of Southgate from a small hamlet into an area of small businesses and services, reflecting the early C19 character of an area which is now overwhelmingly suburban.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

491242

Legacy System:

LBS

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