ME AND MY LISTED HOUSE


A view of the sitting room showing: left, the door to the kitchen and; right, the door to the study. The space inbetween is occupied by the chimney stack, inserted into the original open-halled building, probably early in the 18th century


There was a second ticking time bomb. This time it was at the rear. The garden outside the back door was about three feet higher than it should be – level with the base of the building. This was obviously not good for the historic structure and had potential for serious damp problems.


Malcolm explained: “Over the years the area to the rear had risen in height. You often find this in old houses because of all the debris that has been thrown out over the years. So we reduced the level by several feet outside the back door. Several tonnes of earth and subsoil were removed via the garden rear entrance. This was in 1987.”


Turning to the front of the building the canopy over the porch did not exist when they arrived. They had it constructed and fitted by a local craftsman four years after they came. “We like to think it looks as if it has always been there,” Malcolm said.


But the modest front of the building says a lot more than that. The threshold in the pavement to the left as you walk out of the front door indicates the door to the second of the two cottages that constitute the building today.


Malcolm explained: “The house was originally two separate single-bay units, part of a row of three, all timber framed. I believe all had entrances to one side, which meant there was a passageway to the rear room, which was an open hall, with a fire, the whole open to


114 Listed Heritage Magazine January/February 2020


the roof. Although much of the original roof timbering was replaced when the roofs were raised sometime in the 18th century in order to eliminate the dormers and ‘smarten’ up the facade, there is still smoke- blackening to be seen on the original wind- braces, which survive.”


At this stage, he explained, the front timbering was covered with render as part of a major high street facelift that would have been typical of that time. He continued: “As you entered through the front door into the passageway


that led to the rear it is likely that there was a door off to a front room, which operated as a shop or workshop, with a smaller room behind. There would have been a separate room above the ‘shop’.”


So were all the buildings facing the high street like this? Malcolm thinks this quite likely because the town straddles the old road from Oxford to London. There were several coaching inns and there would no


Continued >>


The historic stone threshold in the foreground indicates where the front entrance stood to the second unit of accommodation, now all part of number 39 High Street. The threshold to the other unit – now Malcolm and Megan’s front door is towards the top of the photograph


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