Description

BRADFORD ABBAS

1611/0/10008 Little Thatch Cottage
25-MAY-04

GV II
House. Circa late C18; altered C19 and extended late C20. Rendered stone rubble. Thatched roof with gabled and half-hipped ends. Gable-end stack with short brick shaft.
PLAN: 1-room tapered plan, narrower at the left [south] end and with fireplace at the right [north] end; probably originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire; first floor and partitions inserted in the C19 to create a pair of cottages, but now re-united into one house. C20 single-storey extensions at rear and at left [south] end.
EXTERIOR: 1 storey and attic. Asymmetrical 3-bay east front; ground floor C20 3-light casement on left, 12-pane sash on right and central doorway with early C20 panelled and glazed door in later porch with thatched roof; two small attic casements, 1-light on left and 2-light on right; raking buttress on right of front. C20 flat roof extensions at left [south] end and at rear [west].
INTERIOR: Ground floor has large stone rubble fireplace at north end with big chamfered cambered timber bressumer and pole beams supporting first floor. Attic chambers ceiled, but purlins exposed. Simple pole-rafter roof structure completely smoke-blackened, including the underside of the thatch, the battens and thatching ties.
This would seem to be a very rare, late example of a small house originally built open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. Alternatively, the smoke-blackening of the roof structure might indicate that some kind of process was once carried out in the building, sooting the roof timbers and that it was later converted into a dwelling.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26670248

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

• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)