Yeoman Cottage, Shearsby, Shearsby, Leicestershire

Summary

A timber-framed house dated 1669, thought originally to date to the mid-C15, extensively remodelled in the late C17 and restored and extended in the late C20.

Description

A timber-framed house dated 1669, thought originally to date to the mid-C15, extensively remodelled in the late C17 and restored and extended in the late C20.

MATERIALS

Timber framing with rendered infill to frame panels, and a reed thatch roof covering.

PLAN

Central lobby entrance plan, with gabled cross wing and later additions resulting in the present L-shaped configuration.

EXTERIOR

The principal elevation faces east onto Church Lane. It is four bays long and two storeys high with attics. The roof is covered in reed thatch with an ornamental block ridge. The left-hand bay is fully rendered over brick, while the other three bays have an exposed timber frame with rendered panels. The exposed frame is continuously jettied. Each storey has posts with moulded jowls, mid-rails and widely spaced studs. The ground floor has tension braces and the first floor has arch braces. The right-hand bay has a cross-wing gable with diamond panel framing in the jettied apex. There are two canted oriels each at ground and first floor. The door is in-line with a window containing C15(?) window mullions at first floor, an eyebrow dormer in the attic, and the reconstructed top of the chimney. The door itself is made of oak in three planks with horizontal counter boards, nails and long strap hinges. There is a leaded glass overlight.

The southern gable has a C20 three-light casement window at its apex. Beneath it is a 1.5 storey extension with a thatched roof and a small jettied gable. It has a porch on its south side and a small east window.

The west elevation has a thatched porch with French doors and an extension on the left-hand side that rises to the height of the first floor mid-rail. The casement windows are irregularly spaced and there is an eyebrow dormer in the attic.

The return elevation of the cross-wing has C20 oriels on both storeys, and an additional small window at ground floor. Attached to the west end of the cross-wing is a single storey thatched range with attic accommodation that originally provided stabling. The westernmost bay has been reconstructed as a garage with brick walls. The rest continues the framing style of the house and has a single eyebrow dormer.

The north elevation is windowless and has an exposed timber frame with rendered panels. It is built over a plinth of (left) rubble and (right) brickwork.

INTERIOR

The building’s lobby entry plan and principal historic features survive well. There are back-to-back inglenook fireplaces with brick backs and recesses for salt or tinder. The larger hearth faces the ground floor hall and the remnants of a bread oven remain on the west side. The smaller parlour hearth has a window on the east side and a seat on the west.

Beams and joists are exposed. The beams are generally chamfered and not moulded, though some moulded details exist.

There are two staircases: an older one to the north and an inserted later staircase to the south. At the bottom of the older staircase is a door with six small-field panels and historic ironmongery.

Throughout the house there is a mixture of historic doors and C20 replacements. Likewise, many of the boards of the upper floors are wide and likely to be C17 or earlier in date.

Part of the attic floor structure has been removed to create a small mezzanine or gallery.

The common rafter roof has some elements of queen strut construction, butt purlins and a ridge purlin. The roof timbers are largely of a rough, raw quality.

The former stables have been opened up internally but retain their C19 brick floors, brick-built mangers and hay racks.

There is a brick-built cellar beneath the rear of the cross wing.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES

In the rear courtyard, within the angle of the house and the cross wing, there is a well lined with large rocks. It is 1m wide and 3.5m deep.

History

Yeoman Cottage is a timber-framed house in the medieval village of Shearsby. The structure and layout of the building date stylistically to the C17 but elements of its fabric appear to be much older. Radiocarbon and dendrochronological analysis of its oak timbers in 2015-18 identified felling dates of 1451 and 1453 for a number of the building’s main structural timbers. It has been suggested that the building therefore dates to the C15. However, it is unlikely to have been converted from the shell of a medieval house as the style of the timber frame, the scantling of the joists used in the first floor jetty, back-to-back hearths, and the lobby entry plan form are all features which have not been retrofitted. Instead, they are indicators of an early-modern rather than late-medieval date. Further evidence that the house was comprehensively reconstructed in the C17 include notched and some smoke-blackened timbers, suggesting that the earlier building had an open hall which is not possible in a jettied building. It is likely that these older timbers were entirely rearranged into their current form in the C17.

This remodelling could coincide with the inscribed date of 1669 on the cross-wing gable. The initials WHAH are inscribed next to the date and belong to William and Anne Howcott. William (1628-1701) was an affluent butcher whose hearth tax records show that he had three hearths before and after 1669. Such inscriptions do not always refer to changes in the building fabric, and could relate to other factors such as a change in occupancy.

In 1853 the three northern bays of the house were depicted in a watercolour by John Flower (1783-1861), a locally prominent artist particularly associated with landscape and architectural images. The building is shown with rendered in-fill panels, oriel windows in the ground and first floor of the cross wing, and a thatched roof.

A photograph taken before 1868 shows the southern bay of the house in brick with a chimney attached to the gable wall and a single storey extension at ground floor with a shallow pitched roof.

The 1885 Ordnance Survey suggests that the house had been divided into several small tenements by that date, a process which was not uncommon in vernacular houses especially over the course of the C19.

Photographed again in 1912 the southern bay was clearly built of brick and has a doorway at ground floor, facing the street. The roofs were all covered in corrugated iron and there were no oriel windows.

In 1944 the house was photographed in a state of significant dilapidation. Its roof was still covered in corrugated iron and much of the rendered in-fill had been replaced with brick. It was in this condition when first listed in 1955.

The process of decay was arrested in 1966 when new owners acquired the building and began a process of restoration. Thatch was reintroduced, the building’s rendered appearance was reinstated, and oriel windows were recreated across the ground and first floors.

Reasons for Listing

Yeoman Cottage, a timber-framed house dated 1669, thought originally to date to the mid-C15, extensively remodelled in the late C17 and restored and extended in the late C20, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* For the display of local distinctiveness found in its materials and craftsmanship, making use of timber framing and thatched roofing;
* For the survival of key featues of interest, such as the building's structural frame, its principal fireplaces and historic joinery.

Historic interest:

* As a good example of a vernacular house little altered since the C17;
* For its artistic association with the works of John Flower (1783-1861).

External Links

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