Walnut Tree Cottage

Reasons for Designation

REASON FOR DESIGNATION: Walnut Tree Cottage is an C18 vernacular building that is designated Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Architectural interest: It is a good survival of a C18 cottage of modest proportions that is representative of the vernacular traditions of the area * Historic interest: The later C18 addition which originally served a non-domestic function adds interest to the building and provides evidence of its development * Internal features: There is a good survival of historic features such as the large fireplace, the winder stairs and original ceiling beams in place, as well a good proportion of joinery including its historic roof structure * Rarity: It conveys, in its exterior and the sparseness of interior spaces, an honest and legible expression of rural domestic accommodation of a very simple type that is vulnerable to change

Details

COMPTON DUNDON

508/0/10013 HAM LANE 30-NOV-09 Walnut Tree Cottage

II Cottage. Mid-C18 with later C18 and C19 non-domestic additions.

MATERIALS: It is built of painted, coursed blue lias rubble under a thatched roof with a rebuilt end (east) chimneystack of red brick. The windows are two-light timber casements of various dates; those to the ground floor of the south elevation are C19. In the west gable wall of the cottage, visible within the lean-to, is a lancet window with stone surround that is probably medieval in date and has been re-sited here.

PLAN: Originally a two-bay cottage of one and a half storeys to which a two bay, single storey structure was added at its west end prior to 1800. The building is rectangular on plan and orientated west-east. At the western end is an attached lean-to which appears to have been added in the C19.

EXTERIOR: The roadside elevation has an off-centre doorway to the right with a casement window to the left-hand bay. The garden (south) elevation has a wide, central doorway to the original, eastern half of the cottage which is flanked by casement windows. There are two further windows set under eyebrows in the eaves. To the left (west) are C20 French doors and a casement window, both with concrete lintels. At the far left (west) end, a wide doorway with plank door provides access into the lean-to

INTERIOR: The eastern part of the cottage was the original dwelling, consisting of a living room and a smaller room, though they now form one large room. A good proportion of C18 features survive here such as the large fireplace with timber bressumer, large ceiling beams with thin chamfering and a stone winder staircase adjoining the fireplace. Although altered, the original form of the hearth remains evident and it retains a re-sited cast iron fireback of 1538. The attic floor has been divided into two adjoining rooms. The interior of the western half of the cottage has few historic features, though this is consistent with it having originally served a non-domestic function. The roof carpentry in both halves of the building is similar, and is formed of trusses consisting of principal collared rafters (though that in the western half has lost its collar) with single rows of staggered purlins and it is all pegged.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: To the south-west of the cottage is a series of outbuildings which is depicted on the 1886 Ordnance Survey map. They are built of coursed rubble stone and include a former earth closet and the remains of several pigsties.

HISTORY: The cottage is shown on a map of Compton Dundon of circa 1790, set within a sizeable plot of ground. Documentary sources indicate that during the 1750s plots of land within the parish were being enclosed for cottages and it is likely that this included the land to the south of Ham Lane. Certainly on stylistic evidence, Walnut Tree Cottage dates from the mid-C18 and was subsequently extended by two bays at its western end, probably in the latter part of the C18. This later addition is believed to have initially served a non-domestic use, possibly as a barn or stable; it has now been incorporated into the cottage. By the time of the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map in 1886, a small addition is shown on the north side of the cottage; this is no longer present on the 1923 map.

SOURCES: Enclosure Awards and Plans of Compton Dundon (c.1790), Somerset Record Office, D\RA/9/5 Dunning, R W, editor, A History of the County of Somerset: Glastonbury and Street, Vol. IX (2006), 105-112

REASON FOR DESIGNATION: Walnut Tree Cottage is an C18 vernacular building that is designated Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Architectural interest: It is a good survival of a C18 cottage of modest proportions that is representative of the vernacular traditions of the area * Historic interest: The later C18 addition which originally served a non-domestic function adds interest to the building and provides evidence of its development * Internal features: There is a good survival of historic features such as the large fireplace, the winder stairs and original ceiling beams in place, as well a good proportion of joinery including its historic roof structure * Rarity: It conveys, in its exterior and the sparseness of interior spaces, an honest and legible expression of rural domestic accommodation of a very simple type that is vulnerable to change

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

507790

Legacy System:

LBS

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