The following information was gathered as part of a survey of buildings in Hanslope conducted in 2008-2010.

Old Cobblers and Old Fairings

Summary

The Old Cobblers and Old Fairings are considered together as they almost certainly were originally one medieval house.

Old Fairings provides slender but unmistakable evidence that the building was initially timber framed with wattle and daub infilled panels. The Old Cobblers may be the end bay of an early hall aligned on the Square, of which Old Fairings is part and with an added cross wing.

Description

A two-storey building of stone, part-rendered, and attached, united under a common slated roof. In 2010, the property comprises two dwellings: Old Cobblers and Old Fairings. In 1900 it provided three, with Old Fairings divided into two.

Old Fairings

A two bay building consisting of four ground floor rooms, the narrower NW bay appearing to have started as a cross wing, projecting nearer to the road by 0.72m. The room to its rear has a rough spine beam, but chamfered to the lateral stack. The re-entrant angle at the rear was filled in by a further sitting room.

A lintel in the party wall with Old Cobblers on the ground floor, and multiple lintels in the same wall in the SE bedroom above, provide the evidence that the two properties were originally one building. This is augmented by a blocked doorway on the ground floor leading to Old Cobblers.

The chimney brests are of brick and appear to be introduced later.

On the first floor, a ceiling beam between the bays has soffit mortices and stake drillings, terminating at a primary post with an angle brace. A similar post occurs at the rear end of this beam, the angle brace here is now missing.

The implication of this is interesting, for it implies a timber framed building, perhaps jettied at the front. The curved angle brace suggests a late medieval date.

The roof is simply constructed, with principal rafters and purlins. In the roof space the party wall with Old Cobblers is of brick, thus probably later than the stone outer walls.

	The plan above and the diagram to the left illustrate, shaded in red, the components of the early house which are visible. The photograph below shows the angle brace to the front wall of Old Fairings.

The photograph to the right illustrates the complexity of lintels and lacing timbers in the rear bedroom of the SE bay of Old Fairings.
Old Cobblers There is very little evidence in this property of an early building. There is a substantial spine beam in the main living room. This has deep chamfers and scoop stops, and was probably inserted in the 17^th century. This room had a stack on the party wall with Old Fairings, now without a fireplace. There are indications that there has been considerable rebuilding at the back at this end, which would have removing any evidence of a hall range. The present roof of Old Cobblers is constructed with timbers sawn by a cross-cut saw. It reuses several older timbers, particularly as purlins. The low angle of the roof suggests that it would then have been slated.

Old Cobblers and The Fairings from the rear.
History The evidence, slender as it is, suggests that the two properties started life as a substantial medieval house with a hall range parallel to the High Street, and a cross wing at the North end now in Old Fairings. The south end wall of Old Cobblers creates an angle in the adjoining property, Stafford House, which can only be explained if Old Cobblers already existed in the late 16th-early 17th century when Stafford House was rebuilt. This stone end wall must have been rebuilt as it engulfs the end stops of the Old Cobblers spine beam. A second fireplace on this wall in this south end bay was added when the supposed early hall was subdivided. The wall, partly of stone between the Old Cobblers and Old Fairings has a blocked fireplace, which it might be surmised lay on the site of the open medieval fireplace. The doorway between the two immediately west was blocked when the property was divided into two, and it seems a new fireplace for the living room of Old Fairings was built breaking into the back of the old flue. By 1779, a map shows the plot on which Old Cobblers/Old Fairings stands as containing several buildings which are describes as "Several tenements adjoining at Church end", belonging to Mary Vass. It seems likely that around 1800 Old Cobblers/Old Fairings was remodelled. There is some evidence that the earlier internal stone walls were reshaped to lower the angle of the roof compared to what would be appropriate to a thatched roof. The two chimneys in Old Cobblers roof space both show evidence of being remade with bricks likely to have come from this period, although this is difficult to prove. By 1818, the substantial range of buildings towards the back of the plot have gone, so what remains is approximately on the site of Old Cobblers/Old Fairings as they are today The buildings are described then as "Three tenements and Homestead", belonging to Robert Smith. A map of 1828 shows the plot looking much the same as in 1818. No description is available, nor any information about the owners or tenants at this date. In a later development in the Victorian period, the houses were extended by the two-storey addition at the back, now the kitchen. The maps imply that these new rear rooms replaced earlier outbuildings at the back. A late eighteenth or early nineteenth century outbuilding at the rear had a timber framed and weatherboarded wall re-erected internally.

Source of above information: Survey by Paul Woodfield, architectural historian. The full survey report is available in the Societies archives.