Description

SHALFORD

431/0/10046 BLACKSMITHS LANE
13-JAN-10 CHILWORTH
Meadow Cottage

II
Cottage, later C17 to mid-C19.

MATERIALS: All elevations are painted. Northern range: stone south gable wall and ground floor return wall with brick quoins and an added masonry buttress; timber-framed upper floor, in two builds, with brick nogging. The northern section of the ground floor wall is replaced in brick. Southern range: brick and stone south gable wall. Brick and brick-faced southern elevation, possible replacing tile hanging over a timber frame, tile hung northern gable. Brick stacks, with tile-hung offsets, plain tile roofs.

PLAN: Two parallel two-storey ranges aligned north-west to south-east, each of two cells and with an external gable end stack at opposing ends. The northern range appears to comprise a stone built cell, possibly of industrial or agricultural use, to which a domestic cell was added in the later C17 or C18, complete with a chimney, with an oven, forming a domestic unit. The building was formerly divided into two separate cottages each with a narrow flight of stairs in the position of the current stairs. The roof above is of two abutting builds, both of slender scantling. The southern range appears to be a later C18 to mid-C19 addition, possibly replacing an earlier structure related to the southern stack, and with the northern bay possibly the latest addition. The two ranges are separated by timber-framed partitions but on two alignments creating wide north-east and south-west rooms and narrower north-west and south-east rooms. Floor levels differ as the building is set on a slope.

EXTERIOR: The northeast elevation is of two builds of timber framing, the northern section has a symmetrical upper floor frame of slender scantling with long straight braces. The southern section is slighter, either replacing earlier fabric or raising a single storey structure to two storeys, although the gable wall seems of one build. Windows throughout are timber casements, mostly of two-lights and two-over-two, or two-over-three panes, some of later C19 date. The northern elevation entrance has a small canted canopy. Windows are irregularly placed and include a small two-light window in the southern stone-built section. The south gable wall has a single first floor window which is probably inserted or enlarged. Disturbance to the fabric suggests a possible blocked door which may relate to an original gable end entrance or to outshuts depicted in the 1837 drawing. The southwest elevation is clad in a brick skin of one build. It and the north gable wall of the southern range have entrances and a window coupled under a broad cambered arch. Most windows are regularly placed two-light casements.

INTERIOR: The north-east room of two bays has a brick stack with chamfered arrises and a chamfered timber bressumer, and the remains of an oven. The spinal beam has lambs tongue chamfers stops. The south-west room has a plain spine beam which is not central to the stack and slender joists. Timber-framed walls and stud partitions have evidence of alterations to accommodate changing floor levels and of blocked openings between the rooms of the southern range. The stairs replace two steep parallel single flights of stairs which latterly had served two separate northern and southern cottages. These rose from the external wall to the centre of the house, in the case of the northern stair, possibly in its original position. Roofs, where visible, are of slender scantling; above the stair well in a narrow central upper floor bay are two closely butted trusses.

HISTORY: Meadow Cottage sits in meadows on the banks of the Tillingbourne river on land known historically as Steersland. The Tillingbourne valley was an area of considerable industrial importance from at least the C16, supporting a string of water-powered corn and fulling mills. Chilworth was noted for its C16 and C17 wire works, associated with the Steers family and for its gunpowder mills which were established in 1626 by the East India Company. The gunpowder mills reached their maximum extent, known as Lower, Middle and Upper Works, under the tenure of Sir Polycarpus Wharton who, in partnership with John Freeman, leased the mills for 21 years in 1677. However Sir Polycarpus over-invested, as the market declined, and by 1710 was in debtor's prison. By 1704 the Lower Mills had been replaced by paper mills, and by 1728 only Middle Mills were in production. The area was also noted for hop growing, a 1728 estate map marking land under hops.

Tenancies of Meadow Cottage date to at least 1712, when it was leased to two yeomen, a point of interest as the building appears to be built as two units. Conveyances of 1776 refer to ground planted with hops, and of 1786 to 'a building used as a hop-kiln with a Barn, but which building was some time ago converted into a dwelling-house', and to a new tenement on the land. Meadow Cottage, which is now rectangular in plan, is marked as a T-shaped structure on an 1810 estate map, and as an irregular structure on the 1st and 2nd edition OS maps from 1871, however it very closely resembles a sketch dated 1837, from the Godwin-Austen Estate Book.

Associated with the building is a single storey outbuilding now used as a studio. Some of the brick work of this outbuilding is of at least early C19 date, and retains evidence of stoke holes on the southern wall and a small internal door, possibly to a flue or oven. While Meadow Cottage is clearly of special interest,currently, there is insufficient evidence to ascribe special interest to the outbuilding, which has been extended and altered. The outbuilding remains however of local interest for its association with the important historic use of the site.

SOURCES: Domestic Buildings Research Group, Surrey, DBRG No 2983, 1983
Glenys Crocker, Seventeenth - Century Wireworks in Surrey and the Case of Thomas Steere, Surrey Industrial History Group, nd
Gun Powder Mills: Documents of the 17th and 18th Centuries, Surrey Record Society, Vol XXXVI, nd
Godwin-Austen Estate Book 1837

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Meadow Cottage is designated for the following principal reasons:
* Cumulative plan and fabric dating from the C17 to mid-C19
* Strong documentary evidence linking the site to C16 and C17 wire works and C17 gunpowder works, for which the Tillingbourne Valley was noted.
* Probable association of the building with these activities and with hop drying.

Reasons for Listing

Meadow Cottage, Chilworth, is designated for the following principal reasons:
* Cumulative plan and fabric dating from the late-C17 to mid-C19
* Strong documentary evidence linking the site to C16 and C17 wire works and C17 gunpowder works, for which the Tillingbourne Valley was noted.
* Probable association of the building with these activities and with hop-drying.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26672939

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

• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)