Building record 1319103000 - 40 & 41 CHURCH LANE

Grade II. Pair of C18 cottages. Flint rubble plinth, red stretchens, grey headers, left hand red brick first floor; Welsh slate roof. 2 storeys. 2 ground floor, 4 first floor casements, left hand ground floor double hung sash with cambered relieving arch. 2 plain doors: on right hand with cut bracketed hood, on left with C19 gabled hood. First floor brick band to No 41. South side gable with eaves level band and blocked attic window. No 39A, Fern Cottage, No 39, 40A, 40, 41, 41A, 42, 42A, 43, 44 and Christadelphian Chapel form a group (B1).
Historic building recording carried out by Oxford Archaeology and dendro-dating by the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory in June and July 2013 during refurbishment works largely confirmed the findings of an earlier vernacular building survey carried out in 1993. The building originated in the 17th century as a single timber-framed house of 3 bays and 1 1/2 storeys with a central open cruck giving access to the the first floor; the front of the building was refaced in brick probably in the early 18th century, and the building divided into two properties by 1767. In the late 18th century the building was extended to the north by the addition of a single bay, some roof timbers replaced, and the eaves raised to create a full 2nd floor in the southern property, all possibly at the same time the building was divided. In the early 19th century the central ground floor room was transferred from the northern property to the southern property and in the mid or late 19th century the eaves of the northern property were raised to create a full 2nd floor. The dendro-dating produced a felling date of 1688 for a joist in the roof of the southern building, although the cruck suggests a construction date slightly earlier in the 17th century, so the joist may possibly be a replacement timber. A felling date of 1753 for part of the wall plate in the roof at the northern end of the southern building suggests that it may have been replaced when the northern bay was built. See report for detail (B2).