Summary
Cottage, late C16 or early C17, re-fronted circa 1800. Refenestrated in late C19 and early C20 within some earlier surrounds. Early C20 south-west chimneystack.
Reasons for Designation
Stream Cottage is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Date: late C16 or early C17
* Documentary: the property and its owners are documented from the mid C16;
* Plan: the original plan form is readable externally and internally;
* Degree of survival: the timber frame survives substantially intact including the roof structure, which unusually has one queen post and one angled queen strut truss;
* Interior features: retains open fireplace, chamfered ceiling beams, old floorboards and a ledged braced cupboard door;
* Rarity of survival: it has been estimated that only 7% of modest farmhouses or cottages of this type recorded locally in the 1662 Hearth Tax have survived.
History
The earliest record of a property on this site is a deed of 1556 when John Copernet, son and heir of Thomas Copernet of Glynde, sold a messuage and adjoining garden in Glynde to William Hencocke of Glynde. The property passed to William Hencocke's son Robert in 1605, by which time all the land surrounding the house and its garden was owned by Harbert Morley, owner of the Glynde estate. The house and garden were bought by Robert Morley, who was Harbert's half brother and subsequent owner of the Glynde estate, from Robert Hencot of Pevensey, shoemaker, and Francis Hencot of Brighton, butcher, in 1612. It has remained in the ownership of the Glynde Estate since that date.
The property is shown on the Yeakell and Gardner map of 1778-1783 with an adjoining structure set within a small rectangular field and a pond on the western field boundary. The Ordnance Survey surveyor's draft of 1800 shows two buildings on the site. The Glynde Tithe map of 1838 shows the house surrounded by gardens and a boundary wall which still survives. At this time the house and garden were occupied by Thomas Saunders the head keeper of the Glynde estate. The house and garden occupied 1 rod 28 perches and the field to the north comprised 3 acres 6 perches, a size very similar to the description of the Hencoke's land. The house abuts Moor Lane, the road leading from Glynde to Ashton, and the field to the south and east of the house was known as Stone Croft in 1838, a possible corruption of the meadow called Stonewell on the deed of 1556.
The house ceased to be the head keeper's cottage when a new gamekeeper's house was built in Glynde Park in the 1850s. Subsequently the property was usually occupied by agricultural labourers from Glyndebourne Farm. Stream Cottage appears with its current footprint on the 1875 25 inch Ordnance Survey map with two ancillary buildings. The revisions of 1899 and 1910 show the smaller of the two subsidiary buildings removed but no alteration to the footprint of the house.
Details
MATERIALS: timber-framed, ground-floor brick in Flemish bond except for the south-east end which is in English garden wall bond. Hipped tiled roof (originally thatched) with small end gablets and brick chimneystacks.
PLAN: two-storey lobby entry house of three bays with narrower central chimney bay with axial chimneystack. The ground floor comprised a heated hall-kitchen on the north-west side and service room (possibly originally divided) to the south-west side, including stair access up to two unheated chambers on the first floor.
EXTERIOR: the north-west or entrance front retains two later C19 tripartite windows to the first floor and two mid-C20 metal casement windows to the ground floor. Central doorcase with mid-C20 door. The south-west end has a C19 horizontal sliding window on the first floor and a mid-C20 metal-framed casement window on the ground floor, adjoining a C19 external brick chimneystack in stretcher bond. The south-east side has three casement windows to the first floor. The ground floor has cement rendering but a principal post is visible and the central doorcase has a concrete porch. The north-west end has no windows.
INTERIOR: the north-east ground-floor room has an open fireplace with a wooden bressumer which contains a blocked bread oven, a spine beam with two-inch chamfers and lamb tongue stops and similar floor joists with one-inch chamfers. The south-west ground-floor room has a similar spine beam but un-chamfered floor joists. Some wide floor boards are visible above these. There is a wooden early C19 fire surround with a narrow shelf on brackets. A C19 straight flight staircase in this room, approached through a ledged plank door, leads to the upper floor. On the first floor the wall frame retains its jowled bay posts and a mid-rail is visible on the north-east side. The north-east room has tie beams and queenposts and a cupboard with a ledged plank door of late C17 or early C18 date over the lobby. There are wide original floor boards. The south-west room has angled queen struts. The roof structure has pegged rafters and clasped side purlins with windbraces. Lash marks on some of the rafters suggest an original thatched roof covering.
