Building record NYW 078 - Clare Cottage, 6 Bear Street

Clare Cottage is a timber-framed and rendered house that incorporates late-medieval framing in both gables, including the remains of a high-status cross-wing of the late-15th or early-16th century, but was rebuilt in its present form in 1690 as indicated by the date in a fine plaster cartouche to its front wall. It is not uncommon to find dates in the plasterwork of local houses but the great majority relate to the re-fronting of much older structures and it is rare to find a contemporary example.

The 17th century building consisted of a two-bay hall to the left (now truncated on the ground storey by a garage belonging to the neighbouring property) with a single-bay parlour to the right and two bedchambers on the upper storey. All four rooms were heated by an impressive brick chimney which retains two well-preserved arched fireplaces on the first floor and an original external stack with simple ‘breakfront’ decoration in the latest fashion of its period. There is evidence of a large roof dormer on the same vertical alignment as both the chimney and plaster cartouche, and the original entrance door lay immediately beneath in the position of a later window. This entrance appears to have opened into a narrow lobby in front of a store room rather than a staircase (as might have been expected) but the internal layout has been much altered and precise analysis is hampered by the extensive presence of re-used timber containing mortises that bear no relevance to the existing structure. These timbers would have been rendered both internally and externally, but only a small area of internal plaster now survives on the ceiling of the subdivided left-hand bedroom. A single original partition adjoins the front of the chimney on both the ground and upper storeys but the remaining internal partitions are insertions of the 19th and 20th centuries of limited historic value (S1).