Blue Barn Cottage (EHER 34526)

An early 19th century timber framed house with modern cement render, thatch roof and brick extension to the East. Map evidence suggests it was built around 1820 using reclaimed timbers from nearby demolished structures. The building was damaged by a thatch fire in January 2019 but the damage was confined almost entirely to the roof structure.

November 1987. Grade II listed. A timber framed cottage, probably 18th century with 20th century plastered parget and a thatched roof with a red brick chimney stack to the left centre. The building is one storey with attics and a flat roof extension with 20th century door to the return. <1> February 2019. Heritage assessment. Blue Barns Cottage consists of a timber framed, rendered and thatched original structure with a single-storied rendered brick extension against its Eastern gable. It is listed at grade II and dated by Historic England as ‘probably 18th century’, but is conspicuous by its absence from the 1805 Ordnance Survey which shows the site as a small green or common. The cottage had appeared by the time of the 1838 edition, and can therefore be dated to circa 1820. The framing is typical of the early 19th century, but the timbers were almost entirely re-used from one or more late-medieval structures giving the appearance of greater age. The Ordnance Survey of 1875 shows an Eastern extension with Northern projections that was replaced in the late 20th century by the present flat-roofed kitchen. At some point in the late 20th or early 21st century the cottage underwent a major restoration to install the existing cement render and casement windows of varnished oak that are believed to have replaced PVC predecessors. Many wall timbers and most of the ground sills and brick plinths were also renewed. In 1842 it was owned by Lord Ashburton’s Langham Hall estate in conjunction with neighbouring Blue Barn Farm and was probably a tied labourer’s cottage. The cottage formed a single South-facing dwelling of typical ‘three-cell’ layout, with a central hall flanked by a service room on the West and a parlour to the East, but had been extended and divided into two tenements by 1875 before reverting again to one property in the mid 20th century. The building was damaged by a thatch fire in January 2019 but the damage was confined almost entirely to the roof structure. The property will continue to retain sufficient historic integrity and significance after its forthcoming remedial work to continue to warrant its current grade II listing. <2>