Building record MDD 027 - The Cottage, Middleton Moor

'The Cottage' is a grade II-listed timber-framed property adjoining the south-western edge of a well-preserved medieval green. The building is broadly typical of the many small farmhouses erected in Suffolk during the mid-to-late-17th century. Close analysis is hampered by the almost complete concealment of the wall fabric by internal plaster and an external 19th century brick façade. It reflects the usual tripartite room plan of the period, with a central hall flanked on the east by a parlour and on the west by a narrow service room. The chimney between the hall and the parlour contains two original fireplaces and there is evidence of a door in the cross-passage position - although a lobby entrance cannot be ruled out. The hall ceiling consists of neatly chamfered flat-sectioned joists with lamb's tongue stops which exited beyond the missing service partition. The upper storey was initially open to the roof structure (consisting of both clasped and stagged butt-purlins) but a ceiling was inserted into the hall chamber during the later part of the 17th century which created an unusual small loft accessible only by a ladder-hatch from the service chamber. One of the two dormer windows in the northern façade bears the date 1717 in its plaster, possibly in commemoration of a marriage or refurbishment, but this is crudely incised and may have been re-worked. By 1839 the house had been divided into a pair of labourers' cottages belonging to the neighbouring farm on the west. Its present pantiled roof id understood to have replaced the original thatch at the turn of the 20th century when it was re-converted into a single dwelling once again, with the small brick porch added in the 1940s. A large flat-roofed two-storey extension was built to the rear in the 1960s as part of a major renovation that included the false external window shutters to the façade (S1).