Summary

A building of urban-type plan as more usually seen in larger towns, where the living accommodation with its side access lies behind a front bay used for the owner’s trade activity.  This, and part of a single roof truss indicate a later 17th century date for the primary construction.

Description

The building is of stone, of two storeys, set at right angles to the Street, and is attached on the SE side by the Chinese Restaurant.

The property is shown as a single range running back from the High Street in 1779, where it has a cross wing running SE. This appears to remain the pattern until 1881. The only evidence remaining of this lost cross wing is a blocked opening from the present sitting room.  The shop in the front bay is augmented by an extension of the frontage to the SE by 1818, now the Chinese Restaurant.  This part subsequently developed its own long rear range. Despite appearing on maps with the adjacent Chinese Restaurant as a single building, it retained its individuality to the extent of having rusticated quoins at the front, probably of the 18th century. It raises the question as to whether 5.5m, (17ft – 18ft), the width of the building with its external walls, plus a side access, is a planning unit in the early layout of the property strips in Hanslope.

The original plan is characteristically that of a town house,  with a workshop/shop at the street end,  a large living room, in this case of three bays behind with a lateral entrance and fireplace, and a kitchen with a gable end fireplace at the rear. 

Transverse beams generally have ogee chamfer stops, as does the kitchen fireplace.  At the side of the fireplace is a square chamber with a brick vaulted roof above ceiling level.  There is no obvious connection with the kitchen fire, but its height, suggests it is a smoking or bacon cupboard, where hams were hung in the redirected smoke from the adjacent fire.  It now has a window, but this is probably the result of later alterations, when the fireplace itself was altered and narrowed.  The room has a round pole spine beam. 

A thick stone wall divides the kitchen from the living accommodation.  Its lateral fireplace has been filled in and provided with a c.1900 iron grate. 

A small circular stair on the back wall is probably in the original position.  Stub ends of a second cross wall, marked ‘C’ on plan, separates the living room from the front shop.  This has been very severely altered, but in urban planning this room usually serves as a craftsman’s workshop and shop, or is where a tradesman daily operated.

The roof retains the upper part of a single early truss, T1 on plan, with 200 x 105mm principals set at 55˚ open-tenoned and pegged at the top and through which a square set ridge piece was threaded.  This construction must be late 17th century at the latest.  It was covered with rafters at 35° in the 19th or early 20th centuries.