39-41 Green Street

Summary

A house, formerly a pair of cottages, dating from c1718.

Reasons for Designation

39-41 Green Street, a house - formerly a pair of cottages - dating from c1718, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Date and rarity: good survivals of early C18 domestic buildings are relatively rare, particularly the more modest examples such as this;
* Architectural interest: an illustration of an endeavour to apply, externally, the principles of the polite architectural fashions of the period to a pair of modest cottages;
* Plan: despite the unification of the cottages the symmetrical plan survives, most notably in the back-to-back sets of stairs rising through the rear tower;
* Survival of fabric: the external envelope of the building, and hence a significant proportion of the early C18 fabric, survives.

History

Records suggest that the pair of cottages at 39-41 Green Street were built in c1718. A publication by the owner of the house from 1977 details the changes in tenancy and ownership prior to his purchase of the cottages in 1959. It also notes the changes he made, unifying the two cottages by creating doorways between the central dividing wall. A newspaper article, undated but probably from the mid-1990s, describes a renovation project made by subsequent owners.

It is unclear when the northernmost stair was straightened: it appears originally to have turned the corner in line with the former rear wall, as the southern stair does. The roof structure has been partially rebuilt, and this may account for the arrangement of the apparently truncated red brick panels beneath the dormers, where there may once have been a cornice or parapet. The front door to 39 was blocked and a window inserted during the 1980s. Renovations have involved the removal of most internal finishes and joinery and the rebuilding of at least one of the stairs. The existing rear lean-to, now containing the kitchen and bathroom, dates from the 1980s and replaced an earlier extension.

Details

A house, formerly a pair of cottages, dating from c1718.

MATERIALS: it is built from brown brick laid in Flemish bond with red brick dressings and a tiled roof.

PLAN: originally the building consisted of two cottages with a central dividing wall with mirrored plan-forms on each side, of a two-up-two-down arrangement, each with an attic room and a stair within a rear tower. This arrangement remains, but with openings within the dividing wall on each floor. There is a cellar beneath the rear rooms, and a single-storey lean-to extension has been built upon the rear wall; this modern extension is not of special interest.

EXTERIOR: the principal elevation faces roughly east onto Green Street; it is of three bays, the central one of which projects slightly forward and is emphasised with brick quoins. At ground-floor level there are two central doorways beneath a shallow, leaded, monopitched canopy with shaped timber brackets. The doorway to the left is blocked and has an oval window; the door to the right is solid timber with six fielded panels within a moulded timber architrave. To either side there is a four-over-four pane hornless sash window with a red brick architrave and flat arched lintel of gauged brick with a brick keystone. On the first floor there is a window with a plain brick lintel to each outer bay, and in the central projection is a blind window with a keystone lintel. The right hand corner of the elevation is cantoned with brick quoins; the corresponding decoration on the left has been covered by the adjacent later building. There are two small box dormers in the roof aligned with the windows of the outer bays, and beneath the eaves there is a recessed red brick apron-like panel to each bay.

The northern, return elevation is blind and the wide stack rises through the rear pitch of the roof.

The rear elevation has a late-C20 single-storey catslide extension, the central section of which has a flat roof, hence it leaves a section of the original rear elevation exposed at first-floor level; this has two four-light casements to either side of a central stair tower. The tower has two small windows lighting the two flights of stairs to the attic, and it has a hipped roof adjoining the main range.

INTERIOR: the internal surfaces of much of the building were stripped back to the brick during the late-C20 renovation; in some areas the brick partitions have been left bare, and these have vertical and diagonal lacing timbers within the brickwork. The ground-floor front rooms have an exposed axial beam with shallow chamfers and lamb’s tongue stops. On the ground and first floors there are diagonally orientated corner fireplaces; those on the former have wide openings, and on the latter are narrower. No original chimneypieces remain, though there is a cast-iron Victorian surround in the northern first-floor front room. The partition between the attic rooms has exposed studwork. The roof structure has been partially replaced: it is constructed from coupled rafters with collar beams. The cellar is a single room beneath the two rear rooms and its floor is lined with brick.

Sources

Books and journals
Freeman, George, A History of 39-41 Green Street, Sunbury-on-Thames, (1977)

Other
Janet Kay, An Englishman's Home is his... Headache. Newspaper article, source and date unknown.

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