The Old Post Office

Details

LITTLE THETFORD

1244/0/10003 MAIN STREET 19-JUN-07 Little Thetford 4 The Old Post Office

GV II Cottage, C17, timber-frame and brick, rendered, with a recently laid, plain-tiled and slate, gabled roof. North gable wall is constructed of gault brick incorporating a stack and chimney, with tumbling-in. Modern brick plinth. Rectangular in plan. Single storey with an attic and with single-storey outshot to the rear. Central door to street front behind a side-entered, modern porch, with a window on each side and gabled dormers above. Modern window frames throughout. Kitchen and bathroom in rear outshot under a slate-covered, cat-slide. Modern roof lights, close to the eaves, to the rear.

INTERIOR: Some exposed light framing at ground floor level, though much concealed behind plasterwork and some replaced with brick. The ground floor has light ceiling joists, with trimmers at south and north end indicating possible former access through the floor. Large fireplace to the south end with timber bressumer and opening for bread oven, now bricked up and the oven lost. Modern fireplace set in. Door in the west wall gives access to rear kitchen and bathroom, and modern stairs. Kitchen with a section of very modest framing, reused timber for a purlin and modern fixtures and fittings. The back door has thin C17/C18 strap hinges. The cupboard door adjacent to the ground-floor fireplace has one thin C17/C18 strap hinge. Ground-floor door opening to stair is above a section of plinth with empty mortices for studs. This may be re-used but, along with a mortice in the main rear wall, filled with a broken tenon, may indicate an early outshot.

At upper floor level there are two rooms, divided by the landing, with exposed framing of light scantling, largely complete. The battened doors are modern creations from earlier timbers. Fireplace in south wall opened up but concealed by recent panelling. The roof is a simple, rustic, coupled rafter roof with occasional yoke pieces and ridge pole.

HISTORY: Little Thetford is a hamlet of Stretham for ecclesiastical purposes, but a separate civil parish with its own Council. The modern name is derived from 'Theod-ford', from which the marshy nature of the original settlement until the C17 drainage of the Fens, can be inferred.

The Old Post Office is C17 in date and was built as a timber-framed cottage. The house appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1887 by which time it had been extended to the rear and there was an addition to the north, now lost. The rear extension was probably that which stands today. It is likely to have been a service addition which had a small stack, perhaps for a copper. The stack has now been replaced with a modern red-brick chimney. The house was then weather-boarded and stone clad. More recently a porch has been added to the front and the roof has been recovered with plain-tiles, replacing pantiles.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: The Old Post Office is a C17 vernacular house constructed of timber frame and brick. The plan form would appear to have been a single ground floor room heated from a fireplace at the south end and this is clearly discernable today. Fixtures and fittings have not survived and the window frames, porch and roof coverings are modern. Nevertheless, the roof and timber framing, especially at first-floor level remain largely intact, and fireplaces survive at both levels, although the upper one is concealed. This building is indicative of vernacular buildings erected around the C17 which characterise many of England's rural settlements.

SOURCES: 'South Witchford Hundred: Stretham and Thetford', A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 4: City of Ely; Ely, N. and S. Witchford and Wisbech Hundreds (2002), pp. 151-59. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

502187

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely in City of Ely, Vol. 4, (2002), 151-59

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