29 Westgate

Summary

Cottage, late C18 or early C19 with an earlier core and a mid-late C20 rear extension.

Reasons for Designation

This late C18 or early C19 cottage, with an earlier core and a mid-late C20 rear extension, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* dating from before 1850, it falls within the period when most buildings that retain a significant portion of their original fabric are likely to be regarded of special interest;
* it has an attractive main elevation that is thought to reflect the late C18 or early C19 re-fronting of an earlier dwelling;
* it retains internal features including a simple ground-floor plan-form and fixtures and fittings including an inglenook, spine beams and roof structure;
* the evolution of the building is highly legible in its fabric and comprises more than one phase.

Group value:

* it benefits from a spatial and historic group value with numerous other listed dwellings lining both sides of Westgate

History

This cottage is present on the first edition Ordnance Survey map surveyed between 1848 and 1850. The presence of early features to the interior ground floor suggest that it is earlier in origin than its late C18 or early C19 south elevation indicates: the latter probably represent a later re-fronting of an earlier dwelling. The character of the joinery to the roof structure also suggests that it was either raised in height or re- roofed at about the same time. It is also possible that the cottage and its neighbour originated from a single dwelling. In the mid C20 a rear extension was added.

Details

Cottage, late C18 or early C19 with an earlier core and a mid-late C20 rear extension. MATERIALS: coursed stone with a pantile roof and a red brick chimney stack.
PLAN: L-shaped with a central entrance.

EXTERIOR: the cottage is set back from Westgate on its north side. The main (south) elevation has two bays and two storeys beneath a pitched roof, with a ridge chimney stack. It has a central entrance fitted with a four-panel door, glazed to the upper panels, and flanked to either side by a three-light window with a stone lintel; there are identical windows, with timber lintels to the first floor, and all windows have projecting sills. The rear (north) elevation has a single, inserted ground floor window and a projecting mid C20 two-storey rear range, all with C20 uPVC window frames.

INTERIOR: an historic ground floor plan-form is retained with a central staircase flanked to either side by a full-depth room. The eastern room has a large inglenook (with a small fireplace inserted) to the west wall: this retains a substantial bressumer beam (which would have originally carried a chimney hood), a heck partition (a screen to the fireplace) and a stop-chamfered heck post. The recess to the right of the heck indicates the presence of a passage that may have originally continued through the party wall. The eastern room also retains a pair of substantial chamfered and waney spine beams running from west to east, supporting stop-chamfered common rafters; the most easterly spine beam is scarf-jointed at its south end. The western room also retains a pair of spine beams in the same positions and alignment as those to the eastern room. The lower part of the roof structure is visible within the coved ceilings of the first floor; it is formed of at least two triangular trusses of a different character to the carpentry of the ground floor, and is considered to be later in date.

End of official list entry

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