Description

Pair of cottages, now in one ownership. Mid-C18 with C20 alterations.

MATERIALS: Timberframed, clad in weatherboarding with tiled half-hipped roof with central brick chimneystack.

PLAN: Each cottage was of one storey and attics with two rooms to each floor and shared central chimneystack.

EXTERIOR: The south-west or front elevation has two gabled dormers with C19 or earlier metal casements with leaded lights. The ground floor has four C20 metal casements and a gabled porch. Both the north-west and south-west ends retain C19 or earlier metal casements with leaded lights and pintle hinges. The north-west side has a fixed C20 12-pane casement to the ground floor and the south-east elevation also has a C20 ground floor window. The north-eastern side is weatherboarded to the southern half but part of the northern part has exposed original framing with a midrail and diagonal brace. The later C20 porch in the middle of the south-western front, flat-roofed extension to the south-east and large brick extension to the north-east are not of special interest.

INTERIOR: The ceilings were heightened in the 1960s to provide more headroom. The northern ground floor room has the north-western corner posts and horizontal beams to north-west and south-west sides visible but with ceiling beams replaced higher. The penultimate room to the north has an open fireplace with wooden bressumer with shelf on brackets, brick surround in English bond incorporating a blocked cambered opening for the breadoven, which has been removed. Two wallposts are visible but the intermediate timbers to this bay were removed when the extension was added in the 1960s. The heightened ceiling has exposed floor joists running at right angles to the northern room and the north wall exposed timbers show the original ceiling height. The penultimate room to the south also has an open fireplace with wooden bressumer, but with renewed brickwork. The floor joists run in the same direction as the adjoining room to the north. The south room has an C18 or early C19 brick floor. The attic contains the top of the central brick chimneystack, the remains of a lath and plaster partition between the two cottages, lath and plaster covering over the rafters, purlins and timbers visible in the gable ends.

HISTORY: A building on this site is shown on the 1876,1899 and 1909 Ordnance Survey maps divided into two cottages and called Oliverhill Cottage. Plans of the 1960s show that at that time the roof was thatched.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Oliver's Hill was built as two timberframed, weatherboarded, thatched cottages in the mid-C18. The plan form of two rooms to each floor with shared central chimneystack is still readable and the timberframe is still relatively complete except where it abuts the later-C20 extension. Surviving features of interest include four C19 or earlier metal casements, open fireplaces and a brick floor. As a pre-1840 building which retains a large proportion of its original fabric and plan form Oliver's Hill is of special interest in the national context.

Listing NGR: TQ6689317477

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26296269

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living