The Cottage

This article was uploaded by Nicholas Cleak at 23:46 09 February 2008

The Gardeners cottage behind the mansion was furnished when I first saw it, with kitchen utensils still in place, a bread bin and a very substantial wood fired double built in stove and wash basin . A piano and chairs resided in the front room, upstairs a bath and bed frames still intact, but the ceilings and rafters have fallen through now and are rotting on the ground... The hallway still has a coat hook rail in the hallway (NC027) the cottage has quite a few small rooms, and is very narrow but the building is quite long with an outside toilet on the North wall. The little Ventilated mesh window is the pantry, (NC003) inside the whitewashed shelves are still there... Some of the outer stone walls have collapsed by the kitchen but probably not by natural causes as many of the walls are in good condition. The chimney stacks are styled just like the mansion a few hundred yards away. (NC020) For me the highlight of the cottage is the little oval window on the front upper wall (NC022).

The cottage is part of a complex over 100 yards long and about 10 yards wide with deep excavations, These may well have been to do with the steam heated greenhouses which “lean-to” on the other side of the tall wall, (NC012) The deep open pit along the wall from the cottage seems to house a boiler below ground level as there is a chimney in the wall, you can still see the pipes going along the other side of the wall to heat the greenhouse. (NC025).

They are quite substantial being four rows of 4 inch cast iron piping along the outer edge of the greenhouse and two rows of similar pipe along the inner wall , all at floor level , it must

have been quite tropical in the green house ! At the far end of the green house is a stone mini cottage with a coal fire and two rooms.

The cottage has a huge garden (NC036) divided down most of its length by a wall. An 8ft high brick wall surrounds the whole garden (NC018) which still produces some first class orange pippin apples, blackberries and crab apples ! (NC017) You can see the two parts of the garden and the huge area of garden in the aerial view (NC028) In one side of the garden is what looks like a pond circled with railings with an opening door in the railings, (NC021) the pond must be about Ten feet in diameter it is a brick circle but has an eight inch pipe either feeding it or draining it, perhaps it is a well, and if so why a door in the railings ?
In the wall of the garden on the woods side is what looks like another well, (NC023) which is full to the brim , the garden may have been watered from this. Some distance further along in the corner is a door in the wall to the woods and Wye Valley Walk outside (NC037).