Park Style, Kington Rural, County of Herefordshire

Summary

Cottage, originating in the C16 or C17, with subsequent phases of development.

Description

Cottage, originating in the C16 or C17, with subsequent phases of development.

MATERIALS: a timber-framed building, partly rebuilt in stone, stone chimneystacks with brick to the upper parts, and entirely rendered. The roof is covered with slate.

PLAN: the cottage stands in a large plot, set back from the west side of the road. The historic range is linear, orientated south-west/north-east.

EXTERIOR: the principal elevation faces south-east and is a symmetrical composition of three wide bays. The front door is central on the elevation, and is half-glazed with two lights; an applied slate date-stone above states ‘1791’. To the left is a window with a pair of casements with horizontal glazing bars, and to the right, a glazed door, adapted from a window. The first floor has three window openings beneath the eaves with pairs of casements. The roof is pitched and there are external stepped chimneystacks on either gable end. That on the north-east is has a large curved projection at the base – a bread oven – with a stone slate roof. The rear elevation, facing north-west is largely obscured by the C20 extension (excluded from the listing); there is a window on the left-hand-side with a pair of casements.

The north-east gable is blind. The south-west gable has a four-light fixed casement on the ground floor, and a pair of casements on the first floor.

INTERIOR: the building is a single-cell deep, with a room at either end and a lobby, WC and stair in the central bay. In the central bay, the insertion of the stair, which appears to be a C20 construction, has necessitated the truncation of the spine beam; the joists in this bay have undergone some modification too.

The architrave of the doorway into the northernmost room has a depressed arched head, and the jambs to the lower part of the opening have been infilled, straightening a bulbous opening. The threshold to the doorway has also been cut away. The corner-posts to this room are jowled, and the timber-framing consists of three studs, with mid-rails at varying heights in each bay, and a floor plate – which is now above the floor level, due to the floor having been lowered. There is a panel within the rear wall infilled with wattle of cleaved oak. The spine beam is a wide timber with very deep chamfers and diagonal stops; a void mortise in the northern end suggests some reconfiguration. The joists are exposed, and have been modified in the northern corner indicating the former location of a winder stair. There is a stone inglenook fireplace, which appears to have been partially rebuilt, and a bread oven has been inserted to one side. It retains a deep, slightly arched timber lintel.

The southernmost room of the ground floor is an addition to the original building, hence the timber-framed dividing wall with the central bay was originally external to the building; this wall has a blocked opening on the left-hand-side. There is no evidence of timber framing in the external walls of this room. A deep beam supports the ceiling, the joists to which have been replaced. There is a blocked stair opening in the ceiling adjacent to the rear wall, and the sloped scar of a stair in the plasterwork. The fireplace is modern.

On the first floor, the timber framing continues in the two northernmost rooms. The central queen-post trusses are exposed; their tie beams have been cut into, probably to create openings between the rooms, prior to the insertion of the stair. The principal rafters have vacant niches for trenched purlins, which have been replaced on the north side. On the south, the roof has been raised, and the principal rafters indicate its original pitch.

There is a varied collection of ledge and plank, and four-panelled internal doors, some with historic strap hinges.

Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the outshut extension on the north-west elevation is not of special architectural or historic interest.

History

Park Style, or Parkstile, is a three-bay, timber-framed cottage. It has an inscribed slate date-stone above its front door stating 1791, though this is likely to relate to the first recorded sale of the building, rather than the date of construction. Fabric within the building is stylistically suggestive of the C16 or C17, and there have been several subsequent stages to its development, evidenced by modifications to the timber frame.

The earliest part of the building is likely to be the two northern bays, adjoining the wide, stepped chimneystack. The northernmost of these has the remains of jowled posts in three of the four corners, and the deep chamfer on the spine beam and the depressed arch of the lintel to the door suggest a date of the late C16 or early C17. These two bays of the building were originally a single storey with an attic, and breaks in the joists in the corner by the fireplace suggest that there was once a winder stair. Upstairs, the two southern queen-post trusses have had their tie-beams cut, providing evidence of inserted openings, subsequently blocked.

A number of substantial developments were made to the building in the C18 and C19: the roof of the original two bays has been raised, and the building was extended to the south-west. The large bread oven, built onto the exterior of the building and chimneystack, is also likely to date from the C19, and involved the reconfiguration of the fireplace internally. The floor in the northernmost bay has been lowered, and the tall window is presumed to have originally been a doorway. In the southernmost bay, the ceiling beam is heavily deteriorated, and the joists have been replaced in new mortise holes. A stair has been removed on the rear wall, and the original chimneypiece has been replaced.

The deeds for the property, dated 1879, refer to the use of the property as a cider mill. The floor heights within the cottage are too low to have accommodated a press, and so such an activity is presumed to have taken place in the associated barn, shown on the deeds as a larger building, which has been largely rebuilt. Within the cottage, the lower sections of the jambs of the doorway to the northern room have been widened, and the threshold cut away, possibly to accommodate barrels.

Historic maps show that in the late C19 there was an adjoining block on the north-west corner of the cottage. This has been replaced by a late-C20 lean-to extension running the length of the elevation (excluded from the listing).

Reasons for Listing

Park Style, a cottage originating in the C16 or C17, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* dating from a period where there is a presumption in favour of listing, the cottage retains a substantial proportion of the historic fabric from the first, and subsequent phases of building;
* a good representation and a notably high-quality example of an early, timber-framed dwelling, embodying regionally-distinctive vernacular building traditions;
* the original form of the building is legible in the building fabric, as is its historic course of development, reflecting changing modes of use and living standards.

Historic interest:

* for its use in the small-scale local cider industry, evidence of which can be found in the building fabric.

External Links

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