Description

SY 09 SE NEWTON POPPLEFORD HIGHERWAY,
AND HARPFORD Harp ford
4/78 Pump Cottage and Court Place
26.11.84 Cottage
II
GV

2 cottages, formerly a farmhouse. Early-mid C16 farmhouse with major late C16 and
C17 improvements; divided into 2 or more cottages in the C18, at which time Court
Place Cottage was rebuilt, Pump Cottage (the surviving older part) was modernised
with a new service extension circa 1976. Plastered cob on stone rubble footings;
one cob stack, the others are stone rubble and all have plastered brick tops.
2 adjoining cottages in an original 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing
west. Pump Cottage is on the left (northern) end and occupies the former service
end room, through-passage and hall of the original farmhouse and has a 2-storey
service rear block built circa 1976 at right angles behind the service end room and
passage. Court Place Cottage occupies the right (southern) end and is an C18
rebuild of the former inner room. This cottage has a projecting end stack.In Pump
Cottage the former hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage and the former
service end room has a rear lateral stack. Both cottages are 2 storeys.
Overall regular but not symmetrical 4-window front, 2 windows each, and comprising
C19 and C20 casements with glazing bars. The first floor left casement of Court
Place Cottage contains variously-sized rectangular panes of leaded glass and
includes margin panes. The first floor windows of Pump Cottage are half dormers and
those of Court Place Cottage rise a little into the thatch. Pump Cottage has a
roughly central doorway to the original passage and it still contains a late C16 oak
frame with a flat-arched head and chamfered surround. (An identical doorframe also
survives to rear of the passage). The front has a C20 stable-type door and a circa
1976 porch with a hipped thatch roof supported on timber twisted baluster-like
posts. Court Place Cottage has an entrance on the end in front of the stack. It
has a C19 stable-type door and is sheltered by a contemporary porch with a leanto
thatch roof. The roof is gable-ended to right and half-hipped to left. It steps up
from Pump Cottage to Court Place Cottage. The rear block roof is also half-hipped.
Good interior to Pump Cottage. Here C16 and C17 features survive from the
farmhouse. The oldest feature exposed is the original 3-bay roof which is carried
on 2 side pegged jointed cruck trusses. The section over the hall including the
underside of the thatch is smoke-blackened and so too is the section over the
service end room but this is only slightly smoke-blackened. The sooting indicates
that the original house was open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated
by an open hearth fire. Evidently the service end was floored over whilst the open
hearth was kept in the hall. The lower passage screen is plastered over but may be
a C16 or C17 screen. The service end was floored over in the late C16 and has a
soffit-chamfered and step-stopped half beam against the end wall. There is also an
axial beam with empty mortices from removed posts and stave holes from the wattle-
and-daub infil. This shows that the room was then divided into 2 small rooms. The
rear wall also includes a contemporary 3-light oak window frame with chamfered
mullions, narrow lights and arch-headed lights. It is now blocked but has never
been glazed. The fireplace has been rebuilt but it appears to be an C18 insertion.
The hall has a large and impressive plastered cob fireplace. Its oak lintel has a
broad soffit chamfer and is supported on the right side by a large oak post with
jowled head. The fireplace was probably inserted in the late C16 or early C17. At
the same time a chamber was built over the passage jettying into the hall as far as
the front of the chimney breast. About the same time or a little later the hall was
floored over by a large axial beam, soffit-chamfered with large pyramid stops.
Court Place Cottage appears to be a complete rebuild. It has a probably C18 axial
beam with broad soffit chamfer and contemporary fireplace with similarly-finished
oak lintel. The roof here was not inspected.
Pump Cottage, though comprising only part of the original farmhouse, is remarkably
well-preserved. For instance, it is very rare for C16 oak doorframes to survive both
ends of the passage. Other C16 and C17 features maybe hidden behind later plaster.

Listing NGR: SY0914490240

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26570614

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

• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings