Description

WEST MEON WARNFORD ROAD
Garden Cottage (formerly
06-MAR-1967 listed as Nos 1 and 2
Garden Cottages)

GV II

Cottage of 1441 (dated by dendrochronology), alterations between c1550 and 1650; early C19 extension, mid-C19 alterations. Division into two cottages at unknown date (pre-1884) and reunited as a single dwelling mid C20.

MATERIALS: Timber-framed with brick nogging and plaster infill panels. Thatched roof. Early C19 single-storey addition in brick with slate roof.

PLAN:
Originally a three-bay hall-house, extended to five bays with inserted chimney and first floor to hall between mid-C16 and mid-C17. Further single-storey end bay extension of early C19 date. Formerly subdivided into two cottages but now a single dwelling.

EXTERIOR:
A two-storey timber-framed house with the upper storey within the roof space, oriented W-E and largely a single bay wide. Thatched main roof is hipped to the W and half-hipped to the E with eyebrow dormers to the E also. Off-centre chimney stack on the ridge, rebuilt in the late C20 or early C20 although re-using some old bricks. Single-storey brick extension to E with pitched slate roof and end stack. Timber frame visible externally and appears intact with large and medium sized panels infilled with painted brick nogging and some upper panels with plaster infill. The panel sizes provide clues to the different phasing of the frame and the most distinctive feature on both elevations are substantial arched braces indicating the end of the original house. Windows are wooden casements of various sizes and styles. One such, lighting the kitchen, dates to the mid C19. Its four lights with yellow glazing are engraved with figures depicting Content, Industry, Confidence and Skill. S elevation facing onto the garden has an off-centre glazed door to the main house and a half-glazed door to the single-storey extension. A further half-glazed door and wooden casements to the N elevation.

INTERIOR:
Box-frame visible internally with panel and timber sizes aiding understanding of phasing and development. Frame exhibits different construction methods including mortice and tenon as well as scarf joints, some of which are pegged. Some wattle and daub infill panels survive, i.e. in the W end wall of original house.

Original C15 three-bay hall house with massive arch braces to the original end walls, also down braces and wind braces visible internally. Roof with clasped purlins. Single bay hall, originally 24ft (7.3m) high at its apex, to the E of which is a chimney inserted into the cross-passage with an original floored bay beyond. Chimney, which must post-date 1500 if not 1550, is in brick and has two back-to-back fireplaces heating the living and dining rooms. Both fireplaces have timber bressumers. Evidence for the C15 screen in the form of mortices in the cross-passage beam, which would have blocked the drafts from the passage entering the hall. Cross-passage beam is chamfered and stopped on its hall-facing side. This is the service or low status end of the original hall-house. Also remains of an internal cross-jetty extending to form a canopy over the dais (raised platform) at the high status W end of the hall. Jetty bresssumer is chamfered on the hall-facing side. Room behind (W of) the dais was the original parlour with a first floor above it. Later alterations include the insertion of a first floor to the hall and extensions to either end. Flat sections of the joists supporting the first floor at the end of the cottage would suggest that this was added before 1550.

HISTORY:
Garden Cottage is a multi-phase timber-framed house which has its origins in the late medieval period. The timber-frame of the original house has been dated by dendrochronology with a felling date in the winter of 1440/41. As oak for timber-framing was used in its green (i.e. newly felled and fresh) state this would imply a construction date of spring 1441. The medieval hall-house was later modified with a chimney inserted in the former cross-passage, a first floor inserted into the hall and extensions to either end. These alterations probably took place between c1550 and 1650. The cottage was further extended in the early C19. There have been subsequent modifications, as one would expect, including a mid C19 engraved window. Lewis records that the builders of the new West Meon church were billeted at Garden Cottage in 1843-6 and that the engravings show 'lively depictions' of Content, Industry, Confidence and Skill; her implication being that the church builders were responsible for this addition.

On the first edition of 1884 the building is divided into four, with two larger central sections each with a smaller end bay, suggesting that the house was divided into two cottages from at least the late C19. The same layout is shown in 1896 but by 1909 the eastern end section had been subsumed into the east cottage. At the time of listing, in 1967, the house was still divided into two cottages but by 1987, when the latest list amendment was issued, it had been reunited into a single dwelling.

SOURCES:
Lewis, E, Medieval Hall Houses of the Winchester Area, (1988), Winchester City Museum, Building No 21; plans and sections at p88

Roberts, E, Hampshire Houses 1250-1700: Their dating and development (2003), pp128-9, 248

Photographs, dating and sketch plan of Garden Cottage by Richard Haddlesey at http://www.medievalarchitecture.net/images/HampshireBuildings/GardenCottage/index.htm [accessed 3 February 2010]

Hampshire County Council Archaeology & Historic Buildings Register entry (site no. 11004) at http://historicenvironment.hants.gov.uk/ [accessed 3 February 2010]

REASON FOR DESIGNATION:
Garden Cottage, West Meon, a timber-framed cottage of C15 origin, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Fabric: a timber-framed cottage dated by dendrochronology to 1441;
* Plan-form: a mid C15 hall-house which retains evidence for its cross-passage and dais, with later alterations also of interest in charting changes in taste and accommodation requirements in the C16 and C17;
* Intactness: a substantially intact and early timber-framed house.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26388472

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.

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