Early 18th century building at Red House, High Street, Great Oakley (EHER 80404)

The modern Red House was once two cottages and a bakehouse before being combined in the 19th to 20th century. The building originated in the early 18th century.

February 2022. Level 2 building survey. The Red House is a brick-built structure, the majority of which has been rendered and painted red (presumably the origin of the current name). Two cottages were originally arranged in an L-shape but have since been converted into one large house with a rear extension. The existing building is rectangular-shaped on a north-east/south-west alignment. It is two storeys and measures 15.05m by 8.51m, covering an area of around 128 square meters. Both roofs are clad in plain tiles on the road-facing pitch and modern S-tiles on the rear pitch. Most of the modern plasterboard ceilings on the upper floors have been removed to expose the roof timbers. The roof is constructed of pairs of rafters meeting at a ridge board at the apex of the roof. All ground floor rooms had concrete floors. All first floor rooms had a grey carpet floor covering and wallpapered and/or painted walls unless stated below. The house is represented on the 1777 Chapman and André map by two buildings, dating their construction to the mid 18th century or earlier. On the 1841 Tithe map, the plot that is now Red House is identified as a house and bake office, and a house and shop. It seems that the north-south range was likely to be the bake office, there is an alcove present in the living room that was probably the location of an oven. Historic photographs show there was once a chimney in roughly the same location as the alcove. The bricks used to construct Red House had a thickness of approximately 60mm, so they were likely produced some time before 1784. The combination of the bond of the brickwork and the size of the bricks used to build Red House indicate a construction date of sometime in the early 18th century, before bricks increased in size due to the brick tax but while English-bond was still popular. The presence of bond timbers in the walls of Red House is a good indication it was constructed in 18th century when the use of bond timbers was at its peak in England. Baltic timber marks were identified on a small number of timbers within the structure of Red House. The importing of timber into Britain from the Baltic began in the 17th century, but increased dramatically during the 19th century. From the cartographic evidence it can also be noted that the cottages remained as two separate dwellings until the early 20th century. While it is not obvious from the cartographic evidence when the extension was added, it is does not seem to be present on maps dated to 1923 or earlier. The presence of laths in the walls of the extension is an indication of an early 20th century construction date as the use of lath and plaster in wall construction decreased dramatically after the invention of the plasterboard in the 1930s. Its likely the extension was built around the same time the cottages were combined into one house. It seems likely, then, when all the evidence is collated that the two original cottages were constructed in the early 18th century then roughly 200 years later, in the early 20th century, they were combined and extended to form Red House as it exists today. <1>