Building record WLD 073 - Rose Cottage, Fishpond Road

Rose Cottage is a grade II-listed timber-framed house of considerable historic interest. It is typical of many East Anglian farmhouses built in response to the agricultural boom of the early-17th century but was converted into three labourers’ cottages during the 18th or early-19th century and eventually restored to a single dwelling in the mid-20th century. Despite the internal upheaval caused by these changes the framing remains largely intact and preserves evidence of an original tripartite layout which is entirely typical of its period: A central hall of 16 feet in length was flanked on the west by a cross-passage and a pair of service rooms, and on the east by an axial brick chimney with a parlour of 14 feet beyond. The roof contains arch-braced tie-beams and clasped-purlins over the hall and service bays, but an ‘A-frame’ with butt-purlins offered greater headroom in the parlour chamber; this roof structure retains most of its wind-braces and represents an impressive example of its kind. The proportions of the building combine with its neatly chamfered and step-stopped ceiling joists to indicate that the original farmhouse belonged to a mid-ranking husbandman with perhaps 50 or 60 acres of land, somewhat below the contemporary 100-acre threshold for ‘Yeoman’ status (S1).