Building record 15739 - Brook Cottage, Chelford Road

<1> Peter de Figueiredo (Independent Consultant), 2020, Proposed Development, Brook Cottage, Chelford Road, Great Warford, SK9 7TL: Revised Heritage Statement, R4649 (Client Report). SCH9316.

An L-shaped building is depicted on the Tithe Map for Great Warford (1842) in the vicinity of the current Brook Cottage, although it is on a different alignment to the current building. The tithe apportionment records that the property was owned and occupied by James Trevor who also had two small patches of land on the other side of Chelford Road.

The existing cottage has a rectangular floorplan, is 2 storeys and constructed of brick in an irregular English garden wall bond with later heavy cement mortar pointing. The roof is of slate with end ridge stacks. The front elevation consists of 3 bays with an off-centre doorway to the ground floor and later timber porch. The outer bays have 3 light casement windows with cambered heads to the ground floor and single horizontal glazing bars. The rear elevation is largely concealed by a single storey lean-to with slate roof. The lean-to probably dates to the 1920s or 30s as the brickwork is stretcher bond, the window openings are supported on steel lintels and the windows have steel opening lights. A two-storey outbuilding attached to the right hand side of the cottage, used as a cow shed and hay loft above, probably dates to the mid-nineteenth century and pre-dates the cottage. This view is based on the map evidence (difference of alignment and floor plan of building depicted on Tithe Map to the existing cottage) and because the bricks are earlier in character. Also, where the outbuilding adjoins the cottage, many end bricks of the outbuilding have been snapped off with no attempt at bonding in. The outbuilding has three openings, a doorway in the gable end, a taking-in door at upper level and a later window opening. The doorway is a later addition indicating that the original entrance to the outbuilding was in the section that was demolished when it was joined with the cottage.

The cottage itself comprises two rooms per floor with a timber staircase between and a small kitch, pantry and bathroom in the lean-to rear extension. Narrow, exposed, softwood ceiling beams carry the first floor. In addition to the front door, three original boarded doors survive, together with plain stick balusters to the first floor landing, however, no other original joinery or fireplaces remain. Stone flag floors remain at ground floor level.