Description

TQ 64 SW PEMBURY ROMFORD ROAD

5/418 No 2, Myrtle Cottage

GV II

Former farmhouse. Probably C15 (certainly medieval origins) with late
C16/early C17 improvements, minor C19 and C20 modernisations. Timber-framed.
The main posts are exposed on the front. Lower sections are underbuilt with
brick and upper section is plastered, tile-hung south end. Brick stack and
chimneyshaft. Peg-tile roof.

Plan: House faces east. It is a low building. The main block has a 2-room
plan (although now the 2 ground floor rooms are united into one). Former
unheated service room at the left (south) end, now with a projecting C19 end
stack, and kitchen/living room to right heated by a right end stack. Lean-to
outshots on right end and returning across the rear. Main doorway now through
rear outshot and right outshot now used as a kitchen and has a late C19/early
C20 stack backing onto the main stack.

Origins of the house as a medieval open hall house. The left (south) end has
always been floored (service room with bedchamber above) but the
kitchen/living room was originally an open hall open to the roof, probably
heated by an open hearth fire. It was floored over, a stack inserted and new
roof built in the late C16/early C17. The size of some of the timbers used in
the outshots (particularly the right end one) suggest that they are early,
maybe original.

Exterior: Irregular front fenestration with 5 ground floor windows and 3
first floor windows, 2 of which are half dormers with hipped roofs. All are
C20 casements and most have glazing bars. Low eaves and tall roof. It is
half-hipped to left and hipped to right but this is the lean-to roof of the
outshot there. C20 door to rear outshot and another into the right end.
Similar C20 windows except for flat-roofed dormer in right end which has
rectangular panes of leaded glass.

Interior: The original framed walls appear to be well-preserved. The timbers
are of relatively large scantling and include large curving braces. Former
left end service room has large scantling axial joists. The former hall
floored by a chamfered axial beam and this is fixed to the chamfered arch
braces of the medieval hall open tie-beam truss. Unfortunately this has been
cut through its centre and therefore there is no evidence of the original roof
structure. The rest of the roof is a late C16/early C17 replacement with
clasped side purlins and using a secondary wall plate on top of the original.
The late C16/early C17 fireplace is large, built of brick with a chamfered and
scroll-stopped oak lintel and it contains various blocked openings for oven
and ash pit.

Myrtle Cottage is an interesting small medieval hall house. The outshots
include massive posts which suggests that they are very early and may be
original. Also, unusually, the formed jowls of the wall posts face outwards
rather than inwards.

Listing NGR: TQ6296841248

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26337560

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

• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  The Shredded Chef: 120 Recipes for Building Muscle, Getting Lean, and Staying Healthy