Description

SY 18 NE BRANSCOMBE STREET (south side)

7/49 Beehive (formerly listed as part
- of Nos 1 - 5 Street Cottages)
22.2.55
GV II

Cottage. C17, parts are probably C16, some C18 and C19 alterations. Colour-washed
stone rubble, maybe some cob; stone rubble and cob stack topped with C19 and C20
brick; thatch roof.
Plan and development: L-plan cottage. The main block faces south-west and backs
onto the lane. It has a 3-room plan. At the left (north-west) end there is an
unheated narrow room which has been made out of a former through-passage. The
fireplaces in the 2 main rooms share a slightly projecting rear lateral stack. At
the right (south-east) end a 2 storey 1-room plan service extension projects
forward.
This cottage is the end one of a row and appears to have been made in the C18 or C19
from the subdivision of a larger C17, maybe C16, house. The main block continues
north-westwards as Jasmine Cottage (q.v) and together they appear to make up an
original 4-room-and-through-passage plan house. Beehive occupies the former passage
(adjoining Jasmine Cottage) and the 2 service end rooms. However, since the
roofspace is inaccessible and most of the internal carpentry is plastered over, it
is not possible to determine the early structural history.
Cottage is 2 storeys.
Exterior: nearly symmetrical 2-window front arranged around a central doorway which
contains a late C19 - early C20 door. The windows are mostly C19 and C20 casements
with glazing bars but the right-hand ground floor window is a horizontal-sliding
sash with fat glazing bars; it is probably C18. The ground floor left window is
blocking the passage front doorway and another window opposite in the rear wall is
blocking the rear doorway. Similar windows in the rear and end walls. The end wall
also includes a secondary doorway which contains a C20 plank door behind a
contemporary thatch-roofed porch on rustic posts. The roof is half-hipped at the
end and the thatch is carried down over the service extension. To left the roof
continues over Jasmine Cottage.
Interior: both main rooms have deeply-chamfered and ustoppped beams, a cross beam
to the middle room and axial beam to the end room. Both also have stone rubble
fireplaces with plain chamfered oak lintels. The one in the end room is larger and
has an oven. The roofspace is inaccessible but a truss is exposed in the chamber
over the middle room. It has a straight principal to rear and side-pegged jointed
cruck to the front.
Beehive is one of an exceptionally good group of thatch-roofed buildings which make
up the hamlet of Street.

Listing NGR: SY1882988846

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26398129

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House